Imagine a world in which a river's conservation was as important as the community it supports. With the insight of a hydrologist and the heart of a poet, Sevigny champions this ideal in her lyrical and exhaustively- researched science journal cum memoir, interweaving the centuries- old paradigm of unlimited natural resources with the facts as she knowsthem: the Southwest is running out of water and rain does not follow the plow. The mythical Buenaventura River is a case in point.
Spanish explorers believed the nonexistent river ran from the Colorado River to the Pacific Ocean. Despite all evidence to the contrary it remained on U.S maps for a century, a testament to the same kind of wishful thinking that supports our current reliance on the Colorado Riverwhich has been litigated, dammed, and drained almost to death- and our faith in technological sleight-of-hand to produce water where there is none. Realizing that what can't be fixed by politics may be remedied by love, and in keeping with recommendations from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Sevigny promotesconservation at the local level. It is a call to arms: Mythical River may be the most important book you read all year.
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- Vicki Ann Duraine Also selected by Bill Broyles
“Mythical River” by Melissa L. Sevigny
