River Basins of the American West

by Miller, Char

• ISBN13: 9780870715747
• ISBN10: 0870715747
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-10-01
• Publisher: Oregon State Univ Pr

Summary

This companion volume to Water in the 21st-Century West examines water issues through the lens of major Western U.S. watersheds. From the pages of High Country News, the voice of Western environmental issues, River Basins of the American West explores why water has been, and remains, the West’s most essential and controversial subject. Editor Char Miller has organized writings into sections defined by the great watersheds of the West—the Colorado River, the Rio Grande, the Columbia River, the Klamath River, and the Missouri River. Arguably, these drainage systems form the real boundaries of the West, and current water conflicts have their roots in development that ignored this reality. Contributors to the book—among them activists, scholars, scientists, and some of the nation’s finest environmental journalists—probe the intense differences and disagreements over water rights across the West, and explore the positive developments toward a lasting solution to the most fraught issue the West faces. Like Water in the 21st-Century West, River Basins of the American West is an essential primer in assessing and mapping the West’s water future.

Author Biography

Char Miller is W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis at Pomona College. He has written and edited numerous books including Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism, Fluid Arguments: Water in the American West, and Deep in the Heart of San Antonio: Land and Life in South Texas.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Continental Divides	p. 9
Colorado River	p. 17
A River Resurrected	p. 18
Quenching the Big Thirst	p. 31
It's Time for a New Law of the River	p. 43
Colorado River States Reach Landmark Agreement	p. 46
The Efficiency Paradox	p. 49
Charting the Course of the San Pedro	p. 62
A Thirst for Growth	p. 66
Of Politics and the River	p. 77
Rio Grande	p. 83
A Tangled Web of Watersheds	p. 84
A Tiny Fish Cracks New Mexico's Water Establishment	p. 87
The Mine that Turned the Red River Blue	p. 98
Divided Waters	p. 108
A River on the Line	p. 118
Peace Breaks Out on the Rio Grande	p. 130
Too Much Can Be Asked of a River	p. 133
Columbia River	p. 135
Holy Water	p. 136
Troubled-and Shallow-Waters on the West's Largest River	p. 146
A River Once More	p. 149
Klamath River	p. 163
No Refuge in the Klamath Basin	p. 164
The Message of Thirty Thousand Dead Salmon	p. 176
"Water Bank" Drags Region Deeper into Debt	p. 179
Peace on the Klamath	p. 182
Platte River	p. 199
Saving the Platte	p. 200
Truce Holds on the Platte River	p. 216
Missouri River	p. 219
On the Missouri, the Middle Ground Gets Soggy	p. 220
Strangling the Last Best River	p. 224
The Last Wild River	p. 228
We Can Still Do Right by the Yellowstone	p. 237
Riparian Restoration	p. 241
Catch 22	p. 242
Reweaving the River	p. 246
"Restoration Cowboy" Goes against the Flow	p. 249
Persistence Frees the Mokelumne	p. 252
Seattle Embarks on a Dramatic Experiment in Restoration	p. 255
The Hoopa's Fight for a River is a Lesson for Us All	p. 258
River Redux	p. 261
Border Restoration's Odd Couple	p. 265
A River Sacrificed	p. 268
Riparian Restoration Guru	p. 274
Riparian Repair	p. 277
Acknowledgements	p. 283
Index	p. 284
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.