Water in the West

Water in the West offers a lively primer on the region's most precious and scarce resource. It collects the best reporting on the subject, drawn from the pages of High Country News, the newspaper that sets the standard for coverage of environmental issues in the West.

Beginning with an exhilarating account of the 1983 Colorado River floods that almost destroyed Glen Canyon Dam and proceeding through recent articles tracking the water quests of Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Denver, Phoenix, and Tucson, this book provides compelling perspectives on the issues and controversies that have roiled water politics in the West over the past two decades. The tensions between the need for water and society's demands that rivers and their wildlife be restored to health are explored in chapters on the Northwest salmon crisis, Glen Canyon Dam, federal and urban water projects, Native American water rights, watershed restoration, and water management.

Readers will find smart, incisive writings that probe the West's efforts to balance competing needs. The contributors to the book — among them activists, scholars, scientists, and many of the nation's finest environmental journalists — offer captivating portrayals of local efforts to solve water conflicts. Together, these stories bring a refreshing focus and clarity to the West's most complex and contentious environmental issue.

High Country News, whose masthead reads "A Paper for People Who Care about the West," is published biweekly in Paonia, Colorado.