Troubled Waters

摘要

Even if climate change wasn't shrinking the snowpack that feeds it, the Colorado River would still be facing a serious dilemma: The two nations, seven U.S. states, and 6 million acres of farmland downstream have'made legal claims to more of Its water than actually exists. On the riverbanks, "every new solution creates additional problems," writes David Owen in his new book, Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River (Riverhead Books, 2017), an instant classic on the West's wicked liquid challenges. For this riparian picaresque, Owen, a longtime New Yorker staff writer, traversed the fields, campgrounds, reservoirs, fracking sites, and salt-crusted ghost towns that hug the Colorado's 1,450 miles, gathering surprising answers and alarming predictions.