Downriver: Into the Future of Water in the West

From an award-winning journalist and river raft guide, "a must-read for anyone who loves rivers or is concerned about the future of the West" (Outside magazine).

The Green River, the most significant tributary of the Colorado River, runs 730 miles from the glaciers of Wyoming to the desert canyons of Utah. Meandering through ranches, cities, national parks, endangered fish habitats, and some of the most significant natural gas fields in the country, the river provides water for 33 million people. The Green is crucial, overused, and at risk, now more than ever.

Fights over the river's water are longstanding, intractable, and only getting worse as the West gets hotter and drier and more people depend on the river with each passing year. As an environmental reporter, Heather Hansman knew about these fights, but she felt driven to see them from a different perspective—from the river itself. So she set out on a journey, in a one-person inflatable pack raft, to paddle the river from source to confluence and see what the experience might teach her. Mixing lyrical accounts of quiet paddling through breathtaking beauty with nights spent camping solo and lively discussions with people met along the way, Downriver is the story of that journey, a foray into the present—and future—of water in the West.

"An energizing mix of travelogue and investigative journalism." —Publishers Weekly

" A worthy updating of a core library containing such works as Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert and Philip Fradkin's A River No More. An insightful look into the unsustainability of western waterways." —Kirkus Reviews

"Explores the water emergency with remarkable calm and even-handedness." —New Republic

© 2019 The University of Chicago Press (Ebook): 9780226432700

Release date

Ebook: 2 April 2019