Running Dry: A Journey From Source to Sea Down the Colorado River, by Jonathan Waterman (National Geographic, 2010)
The great American river that once carved the Grand Canyon now disappears in a trickle 100 miles from the Pacific Ocean in Mexico, and author Jonathan Waterman set out on a nearly 1,500-mile paddling trip in 2008 to make sure we are aware of why it’s happening.
From the author’s website, www.jonathanwaterman.com:
“Feats of engineering and human ingenuity have made it possible for the Colorado River to irrigate 3.5 million acres of farmland and support 30 million people on arid lands throughout the western U.S. and northern Mexico.
Distant cities, including some of the fastest growing in the nation—L.A., Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, and Albuquerque—depend upon its waters and have transformed it into one of the most diverted and litigated rivers in the world. The Colorado now reaches the sea only in the wettest of years and the Delta, once one of the greatest desert estuaries in the world, has been reduced to a veritable wasteland.
Jon’s unprecedented paddling journey down the 1,450 mile Colorado River is detailed in his book, Running Dry, as he deposits his mother’s ashes in the headwaters then investigates the remains of the west’s most iconic waterway.”
Part adventure/travelogue, part serious environmental research, Running Dry aims to change the common perception that everything is okay on the Colorado.
