Running Dry: A Journey From Source to Sea Down the Colorado River

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In 1869, John Wesley Powell led a small party down the Green and Colorado Rivers in a bold attempt to explore the Grand Canyon for the first time. After their monumental expedition, they told of raging rapids, constant danger, and breathtaking natural beauty of the American landscape at its most pristine.
Jon Waterman combines sheer adventure and environmental calamity in this trailblazing cautionary account of his 2008 trip down the overtaxed, drying Colorado. Dammed and tunneled, forced into countless canals, trapped in reservoirs and harnessed for electricity, what once was untamed and free is now humbled, parched, and so yoked to human purposes that in most years it trickles away 100 miles from its oceanic destination.
Waterman writes with informal immediacy in this eye-witness account of the many demands on the Colorado, from irrigating 3.5 million acres of farmland to watering the lawns of Los Angeles. He shows how our profligacy and inexorable climate change spark political conflict, and how we can avert this onrushing ecological crisis. As he follows Powell afloat and afoot, Waterman reaches out both to adventure travelers and to scientists, conservationists, environmentalists, and anyone interested in the fragile interplay between nature and humans.
Publisher ‏ : ‎ National Geographic
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 18, 2010
Edition ‏ : ‎ First Edition
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1426205058
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1426205057
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1.21 x 9.26 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #2,833,984 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #949 in Rivers in Earth Science #2,035 in Ecotourism Travel Guides #3,285 in West Mountain United States Travel Books
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