Where the water goes - David Owen

The Colorado River is a crucial resource for a surprisingly large part of the United States. It supplies water to thirty-six million people, eight major cities, and six million acres of farmland. It powers hydroelectric plants, fills the country's two biggest man-made reservoirs, and supports recreational activities worth $26 billion a year. The river's flow is so altered and controlled that it functions more like a giant canal, with every gallon owned or claimed by someone. So much water gets diverted from the Colorado as it winds through the southwest that its historical delta, once a verdant wetland, has become a million-acre desert. David Owen explores what happens to all that water between the Colorado's headwaters and its parched terminus. His portrait of the Colorado River takes readers on an adventure downriver, along a labyrinth of man-made waterways, back roads, and RV parks, to the spot near the U.S.-Mexico border where the river runs dry. The story he tells is crucial to our future: how a patchwork of engineering marvels, byzantine legal agreements, aging infrastructure, and neighborly cooperation enables life to flourish in the desert, and the disastrous consequences we face when any part of this tenuous system fails.