Although Dave Showalter was not intending a commitment to a long-term project, that is exactly what happened when he began his study and documentation of the perils and promise of the Colorado River. Encompassing several years of work, hikes and photography, the resulting book, Living River: The Promise of the Mighty Colorado, is an award winner, capturing the NOBA, the Outdoor and Nature prize of the 27^th annual National Outdoor Book Awards.

The book’s exceptional photos not only capture beautiful moments in time but also  illustrate the issues of our state’s geography and the river’s effects upon the Southwest.

Based in Arvada, Colorado, Showalter’s work extends far beyond the Front Range. He has contributed to Outside, Outdoor Photographer, National Parks, High Country News and other publications, but this latest effort took him on an extended Colorado River journey. Already familiar with declining snow depths in Colorado high country, he began with the river’s inescapably serious current state.

The Colorado Compact, in place since 1922, is now over a century old and out of date, having fallen dreadfully behind western states’ immense growth and overuse of the river’s waters. Decades of headlines and feature stories have related the troubles for what has been termed ”the hardest working river in America.” For years, commissions have met to revise The Colorado Compact, expiring in 2026, enlarging provisions for seven states, adding 29 Native American reservations and including Mexico.

In the 1960s, after six million years of geologic flow, the 1,450-mile-long river ceased reaching its destination—the Gulf of Mexico. Once serving three million people, hundreds of species and thousands of acres of farmland, the river now must support 40 million people and even more square miles of agriculture.

“The Colorado drains 240,000 square miles and makes life possible from Denver to Los Angeles, from Salt Lake City to Yuma, and Mexicali to San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico,” Showalter explains in Living River. “Still there is no sugaring the peril of our water truth in the American West.”

Admittedly, the engineering required to divert water has been ingenious. The book cites these examples:

• The Moffat Water Tunnel, a ten-foot diameter bore, takes 60 percent of the Fraser River’s water for eastern slope needs and, through a series of tunnel diversions, crosses the Continental Divide three times.
• Thirteen dams in the river system with two huge ones, which might have become four, stalled the river, filled gorges, valleys, and canyons, and built enormous reservoirs.
• Two canals, the 242 -mile- long Colorado River Aqueduct complex and the Central Arizona Project stretching 336 miles, cost $4 billion and took 20 years to build, substantially depleting the river’s waters.

All of these efforts aside, Showalter’s aerial photo of 2022 showing the Lake Mead bathtub ring illustrates that drought and overuse reduced its level to just 27 percent of capacity. The lake had not been full since 1983, and mega-drought damage to the water supply resulted in the first ever declared shortages announced in 2021, followed by an explosion of wildfires in the West in 2022.

Bleak though conditions appear, Showalter documents restoration projects, programs and ideas that have brought improvements. To this end, he has trekked miles of the Colorado and its tributaries, rafted the canyons and studied how the river that transformed landscapes and fostered life for millions of years can retain its power.

His book investigates bankside willow plantings, dredging projects and delta restoration along the San Pedro. Chapters on major watersheds, with the familiar names of Fraser, Delores, Gunnison, Yampa and Green, alongside attendant photos, develop an appreciation for those conserving our wild places.

Dave Showalter

In lengthy sidebars, Showalter allows several voices to speak about their own efforts along the waterways. “Earth’s Breath” by Alison Holloran discusses the difficulties and wetland necessities for bird migration. The river basin is essential to the lives of millions of birds and critical for the yellow warbler and the sandhill crane. Kirk Klancke has been improving the stream health of the Fraser, as chronicled in Living River. In cooperation with Trout Unlimited, volunteers with Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the city of Denver have stabilized stream banks, increased stream depth and created settling ponds to capture silt from stream bottoms, supporting insect populations needed to feed native fish. Tom Koerner, another conservation manager, has used controlled burns and cattle grazing to mimic the conditions once provided by buffalo herds. Cottonwood galleries and willow, essential to the riparian ecosystem, stabilize banks while providing shade and food for wildlife.

Bears Ears National Monument is the first national monument proposed by a coalition of sovereign tribal nations who proposed boundaries for the 1.9 million acres to save sacred land as well as to protect the Green and Colorado waters. Although the monument is now smaller, resources remain insufficient for food production and other family needs. Even now, 30 percent of Native American communities have unreliable access to water and sanitation. Further downstream, Holly Richter is building consensus for projects mapping ground water and researching its relationship to the San Pedro River, and Jennifer Pitt describes the Greening Project to restore some of the former 9,650 square miles of the Colorado River Delta in Mexico.

Through seven maps, 150 startling photos and Showalter’s effective prose, we, too, might share hopes for the river’s future. Showalter captures the river’s beauty and integrity as well as the majestic power of its landscape: some clear streams, many carved by turbulent rapids, and the emptiness of the delta. A reading of Living River will show those of us in the state bearing its name the mystical power of our river.

“Recovering the endangered cottonwood-willow ecosystem wherever possible, providing all people with access to clean water, recharging ground water for riverine health, protecting instream flows, and greening the Colorado River Delta are hopeful pieces of a holistic view for this watershed. When we become the river, the actions will be simply giving back to a watershed that all our western lives are built upon. When we become the river, there will be no separations between us and the rivers, between us and crane, warbler, trout, bobcat. When we become the river, water and all of the life supported in her flow, will be sacred. The Colorado River and her tributaries change everything they touch, including us. That is the river’s promise.

There may be just enough water for people, wildlife, and life in flow. When we become the river.”