JUNE 2017 - AudioFile
Environmental writer David Owen takes listeners on the Southwest’s most iconic and troubled waterway. To his credit, he does some digging into a very complicated topic as he travels (physically) from the Colorado’s headwaters near Rocky Mountain National Park to its delta in Mexico. Narrator Fred Sanders adds gravitas to Owen’s narrative. His crisp baritone could make a telephone directory seem majestic. His pacing suits the engaging combination of water law doctrine, hydrology, anthropology, and personal vignettes that Owen offers to help his listeners understand “the law of the river” and the river itself. F.C. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
The Barnes & Noble Review
Some miles south of the Mexican city of Los Algodones, near the Baja Peninsula, the Colorado River ends. It used to flow to the sea, emptying into the Gulf of California. As recently as midcentury, its delta was a wetland ecosystem, with lagoons, fish, and jaguars. Now the drainage basin is an arid wasteland. Motorists have to pay a toll to drive over a bridge that crosses only sand. In 2014, an agreement between the United States and Mexico authorized a one-time release of river water through an upstream dam over an eight-week period. Children came to marvel at a river they didn't even know was there.
In Where the Water Goes, longtime New Yorker contributor David Owen explores one of the most complex water systems in the world. Although visually stunning, the Colorado River is not a storied transportation waterway like the Mississippi or a cradle of civilization like the Nile. It is only 1,400 miles long and not very wide in places. Yet what it lacks in size it makes up for in footprint. The Colorado runs dry because it provides water to tens of millions of people. In addition to residents of northern Mexico and southern California (including Los Angeles), the river and its tributaries supply water to Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.
Along its southwesterly path from the snowpack of the Rockies, the Colorado winds through a network of dams and reservoirs that provide hydroelectric power as well as water to large portions of the West. The system's two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, "have been treated like lower-basin credit cards," Owen writes, and now stand at historically low levels. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation estimated recently that the Colorado has a "structural deficit" of over a million acre-feet per year — meaning claimants have paper rights to more water than actually exists. (An acre-foot is the volume it takes to cover one acre in water to a depth of one foot — roughly 325,000 gallons.) Climate change will only exacerbate the shortage by reducing the precipitation that forms the snow that becomes the river. The situation is unsustainable.
The answer would appear to be obvious: "All we need to do is turn off the fountains at the Bellagio, stop selling hay to China, ban golf, cut down the almond trees, and kill all the lawyers," Owen writes facetiously. Not at all. Where the Water Goes exposes and revels in the complexities of water policy. The Bellagio's famous fountain in Las Vegas, for instance, might seem like a wanton waste of a precious resource in the middle of a desert. Yet it is a drop in the bucket. The fountain uses a miniscule 64 acre-feet of water — and its source is not the Colorado but a combination of groundwater and storm runoff. Moreover, Las Vegas and Nevada more broadly have some of the most effective water conservation policies in the Southwest. Las Vegas has reduced its annual consumption by over 15 billion gallons since 2007. If southern California were so efficient, the river would produce a surplus rather than a deficit.
Owen writes that water problems do not have easy solutions. Trees in the southwestern cities and suburbs exist because of irrigation. One way to reduce consumption would be to stop watering them. But this would only produce a different environmental problem. The loss of shade provided by tree canopy would lead to a dramatic spike in energy consumption. Perhaps people should not live in deserts, then — but if they moved elsewhere, Owen writes, they would strain the water systems of their new homes as well. Another paradox is agriculture, by far the biggest use for Colorado River water. Some might argue that growing plants in an arid region makes little sense. Yet desert agriculture carries far less risk of catastrophic storms, droughts, and frosts, and supports a year- round growing season in which precise planning — and thus efficient use — is possible. In other words, addressing the Colorado's shortage is not as simple as using less water.
What, then, is the solution? Here Where the Water Goes suffers its only real shortcoming. The book is a delightful read, digressive and omnivorous in its concern with natural history, travel, public policy, and geography. But Owen does not pretend to have answers. While identifying difficult trade-offs in water management, he does not make any choices. The closest to an effective water policy the Colorado has seen in recent years was a sharing arrangement known as Minute 319 between the United States and Mexico after the Baja earthquake of 2010. It was a momentary reprieve from the tragedy of the commons that the Colorado River exemplifies. But rights sharing won't halt population growth or climate change. Get it while you can. One day it will be gone.
Michael O'Donnell is a lawyer who lives in Evanston, Illinois. His reviews and essays appear in The Nation, the Washington Monthly, and the Christian Science Monitor, among other publications.
Reviewer: Michael O'Donnell
The New York Times Book Review - David Biello
…a brisk and informative travelogue that wends from headwaters in the state of Colorado to where the water trickles to a halt in a riverbed cracked by the heat of the desert sun in Mexico…Owen has the keen observation of a birder combined with the breezy writing to draw you in with unusual insights…Where the Water Goes raises more questions than it answers, but if wondering where the water comes from prompts readers to plumb this voluminous literature around the Colorado River more deeply, then Owen's book will have done important work.
Publishers Weekly
02/27/2017
The Colorado River, the main water source of America’s desert Southwest, flows sorely vexed to the sea—almost—in this revealing investigation of hydroecology in extremis. New Yorker contributor Owen (The Conundrum) follows the Colorado from its Rocky Mountain headwaters to the point where it trickles out in the Mexican desert, well short of its historical outlet to the sea, visiting the massive infrastructures—the mighty Hoover Dam, giant pipes, pumping stations, canals, and humble sprinklers—that divert its waters for millions of uses. Along the way he encounters people whose lives entwine with the river, including lawyers wrangling endlessly over arbitrary apportionment rules—existing allotments grant various users more water than actually flows in the river—and utility planners trying to stretch the flow among a growing population, as well as ordinary farmers, boaters, and the quirky subculture of transient RV camps on its banks. Through his reportage, Owen teases out the contradictions of the complex issues surrounding the Colorado: water conservation efforts, he finds, can do more harm than good because allegedly “wasted” water often returns to replenish the river and aquifers. Rather than simply bemoan environmental degradation, Owen presents a deeper, more useful analysis of the subtle interplay between natural and human needs. Agent: David McCormick, McCormick Literary. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
Owen has the keen observation of a birder combined with the breezy writing to draw you in with unusual insights. . . . As Owen shows, the Colorado River is a great, sad, terrifying, possibly hopeful example of the pervasive, permanent mark people are making on the planet.” —The New York Times Book Review
“This wonderfully written book covers issue that will, or should, give you a headache. But it is a good headache, one that makes you a more informed person. Mr. Owen writes about water, but in these polarized times the lessons he shares spill into other arenas. The world of water rights and wrongs along the Colorado River offers hope for other problems.” —Wall Street Journal
“Owen is effortlessly engaging, informally parceling out information about acre-foot allotments alongside sketches of notable, often dreadful figures in the river's history… Where the Water Goes doesn't pretend to solve the problems Owen acknowledges are overwhelming and, in some ways, impossible. It's a restless travelogue of long-term human impact on the natural world, and how politics and economics have as much to do with redirecting rivers as any canal. But with its historical eddies, policy asides, and trips to the Hoover Dam, at heart Where the Water Goes is about water as a function of time, and a reminder that we're running out of both.” —NPR.org
“Where the Water Goes makes an eloquent argument for addressing the impact of human inhabitants on the natural world.” —BBC.com
“Part road-trip documentary, part memoir, and part geopolitical and hydrology lesson, author David Owen’s book follows the historical and geographic course of the river, the water it carries, and the lives that depend on it… [Owen] effectively describes the links between historic precedents, choices, and events that led the river and the millions of people who depend upon it to the present state.” —Science Magazine
“The story Owen tells in Where the Water Goes is crucial to our future.” —Boulder Daily Camera
“David Owen's new book, Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River… handles its sprawling subject with deftness and quirkiness… Owen delves into the history and politics of the much-dammed, over-allocated river, as well as the arcana of Western water law and the weirdness of RV culture, without losing sight of larger questions about the sustainability of America's efforts to make the desert bloom.” —Westword
“This gorgeous new book is a compelling and fascinating read about the Colorado River, a crucial water source for a surprisingly large portion of the United States. David Owen, with utmost elegance and wry wit, examines the river from headwaters to terminus and all the stops along the way.” —BookPeople’s Blog
“Mr. Owen owns our attention. We have a lot to learn, but this is not a textbook. Mr. Owen offers a detail-rich travelogue, an amalgam of memoir and journalism and history.” —Wall Street Journal
“[A] revealing investigation of hydroecology in extremis. . . Rather than simply bemoan environmental degradation, Owen presents a deeper, more useful analysis of the subtle interplay between natural and human needs.” —Publishers Weekly
“An essential read for not only the environmentally minded but also citizens who are curious about where their water comes from. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal
“Owen offers a wealth of engrossing and often surprising details about the complicated nature of water rights, recreational usage (worth $26 billion a year), and depletion threats from climate change and the fracking industry. With water shortages looming across the globe, Owen’s work provides invaluable lessons on the rewards and pitfalls involved in managing an essential natural resource.” —Booklist
“It’s a rare writer who can explain the inexplicable, but David Owen manages to do just that. Where the Water Goes is at once informative, entertaining, and unsparing—essential reading for anyone who cares about the American West.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction
“Fascinating, thoughtful, and wise. David Owen is an extraordinarily gifted writer.” —Bill Bryson, author of The Road to Little Dribbling and A Walk in the Woods
“An important work that brings the questions surrounding water use in the American Southwest forward to the era of climate change. With humor, an acute eye, and un-showy skill, Owen has written a book that deserves to stand with Marc Reisner’s classic, Cadillac Desert.” —Ian Frazier, author of Great Plains, On the Rez, and Hogs Wild
“I have traveled the American West all of my life and thought that I knew everything about its fabled water wars. But David Owen fills in so many gaps that I feel that I've been to water reeducation camp. Whether you read for fun, or edification, this is a gem.” —Rinker Buck, author of The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey
Library Journal
★ 02/15/2017
New Yorker staff writer Owen (The Conundrum; Green Metropolis) tackles the twisted history of the Colorado River. Water rights drafted in the gold rush era and formalized on miscalculations in the early 20th century are still controversial today. Farmers, businesses, cities, states, and Mexico clash over a water supply constantly decreasing as a result of changes in weather and population. The author includes the exploration and development history of the waterway and biographies of legendary figures such as John Wesley Powell, who led a three-month expedition down the Green and Colorado rivers, and riverboat pilot Nellie Bush. Owen travels the length of the Colorado from the headwaters to the delta (now dry) by plane, by car, and on foot, talking to stakeholders about their issues. This purposefully rambling narrative frames the discussion of water as a vital continental concern. VERDICT An essential read for not only the environmentally minded but also all citizens who are curious about where their water comes from. Highly recommended for public, school, and academic libraries. [Prepub Alert, 10/10/15.]—Catherine Lantz, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Lib.
JUNE 2017 - AudioFile
Environmental writer David Owen takes listeners on the Southwest’s most iconic and troubled waterway. To his credit, he does some digging into a very complicated topic as he travels (physically) from the Colorado’s headwaters near Rocky Mountain National Park to its delta in Mexico. Narrator Fred Sanders adds gravitas to Owen’s narrative. His crisp baritone could make a telephone directory seem majestic. His pacing suits the engaging combination of water law doctrine, hydrology, anthropology, and personal vignettes that Owen offers to help his listeners understand “the law of the river” and the river itself. F.C. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2017-01-31
Travels along the endangered Colorado River and its tributaries reveal the challenges of providing water to 36 million people throughout the West.New Yorker staff writer Owen (The Conundrum: How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency, and Good Intentions Can Make Our Energy and Climate Problems Worse, 2012, etc.) elaborates on the critique he presented in his previous book, this time focusing on one crucial natural resource: water. Devising a sustainable water policy, he argues convincingly, is complicated and sometimes counterintuitive. "Many of the technological wonders that we think of as solutions to our gathering environmental problems actually exacerbate other environmental problems," he asserts. Wind turbines, electric car batteries, and computer chips, for example, depend on the extraction of rare elements from places "where labor and land are cheap, and where regulatory oversight is minimal." This extraction damages land, ecosystems, rivers, and, not least, miners' lives. Foremost among the many problems inherent in water use from the Colorado is salt. Because salt does not settle out the way silt does, it remains in recycled water, making that water unsuitable for drinking and agriculture. In high enough concentrations, plants cannot grow in topsoil saturated with salt: the salt flats of Utah stand as an example. If lawns and golf courses use salt-laden water, they can add tons of salt to every acre of soil. Following the river's winding route, Owen interviewed environmental experts, farmers, RV drivers, and politicians, investigating water policy, laws, and conservation strategies. In California, he visited the agricultural Imperial Valley, irrigated by "a valley-sized plumbing system," and the Salton Sea, "created by an act of engineering imbecility" that involved diverting the Colorado River. The largest lake in California is now desolate, saltier than the Pacific Ocean and unable to sustain the fish and birds that once thrived in it. The author chides off-the-grid environmentalists who are willfully blind to the energies they use to sustain their lives and makes a case for city life as environmentally responsible. As Owen amply proves, "water issues are never only about water."
