Water in the West: A High Country News Reader

"Water in the West" offers a lively primer on the region's most precious and scarce resource. This volume collects the best reporting on the subject, drawn from the pages of "High Country News," the newspaper that has set 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 through recent articles tracking the water quests of Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Denver, Phoenix, and Tuscon, the 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 in this vast, arid region and society's demands that rivers and their fish and 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, water quality, wilderness water rights, watershed restoration, and water management.

The contributors--among them water attorney and author Charles Wilkinson, environmental historian Hal Rothman, and "High Country News" publisher Ed Marston, as well as many of the West's finest environmental journalists--offer lively, human portrayals of conflicts over water issues. Together, their articles bring a refreshing focus and clarity to the West's most complex and contentious environmental issue.