Water: A Natural History

Many of the books on the increasingly common water shortages spend a great deal of their time listing mind numbing statistics. This author is authoritative but has the sense to pick a few key reasons why our entire US water infrastructure needs the help of nature. Beavers and prairie dogs may be what we need, at least in this country, to improve the percolating powers of the earth to clean what science alone cannot remove from our water. This is one of the few books in this area that is readable by anyone over mid-teens. I highly recommend this book for a history of why the Clean Water Act is not enough.

This book opens one's eyes about water, the way the water cycle was before the continent was despoiled, little things like water percolating through leaves and big things like the beaver dams constructed by 200 million beavers...now, there are 200 million people! We are ordering extra copies to give away, to inform and to intrigue people in all walks of life.

This is a superlative book; I recommend anyone living in the USA to read it. It is short, but each sentence is informative, there are no wasted words, no fat. It is scientifically and historically acurate to the smallest detail, but never dry. Outwater's writing style is flowing and musical, and each sentence takes you further and deeper into an Alice-in-Wonderland journey of the magic and marvel of each of the ecosytems she describes. She uses water as the vehicle for each journey, from molecules to the ocean. She describes the balances of Nature and how humans have fit in, or destroyed, these balances. I am a longtime outdoorsman, photographer, and conservationist, and had thought I was reasonably observant. But reading this book was like having a film removed from my eyes and being fitted with ultra-acute vision and hightened understanding and appreciation of our history and environment.

This wonderful book is not about the molecule or its chemistry. It is the natural history of life's most basic building material as it has been used and abused on the North American continent over the past five hundred years or so. It would be reasonable to call this engaging book a short history of the ecology of America's water only, as vital as it is, water is not alive. The author traces the interactions of living systems with the natural water cycle to support the thesis that nature had water quality and quantity problems well sorted out before we humans came on the scene. She indicates that restoration of natural systems of porus grasslands, free-flowing streams,fresh-water mussels, beaver ponds, and mature woodlands may very well be the "best practise" for water quality management if this country is serious about making every river, lake and stream fishable and swimable. As I read this well crafted history it occurred to me that this book belongs in the same league as "A Sand County Almanac". I am sure Aldo leopold would agree.

Yes, a book about water that makes sense. She begins with the beaver and the demand for its pelt in Europe and threads her way west through the exploitation of North America and on ... and brings us back to end her story in my local sewer plant. I very much enjoyed her subject and her style of writing. She makes her point clearly. She knows how water flows. I finished her book with a greater respect for water, for its sacradness and the inter-connectedness of all things. How "western civilization" believes it has the "right" to make the world in its image at any cost. Water: A Natural History affirms my belief that American has yet to realize the devastating affects its taming of the west will cost.Now I have another standard to use when considering my choice of actions with water use and my relationships with the world I live in together with you.