Adventurer, author Jon Waterman

On Wednesday, Wednesday, May 19, at 7 p.m., author and adventurer Jon Waterman will present “Running Dry: A Journey from Source to Sea Down the Colorado River” in the Byrd Auditorium at the National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) in Shepherdstown.

Jon Waterman combines sheer adventure and environmental calamity in this trailblazing new book bringing to life his 2008 trip down the overtaxed, drying Colorado. Dammed and tunneled, forced into countless canals, trapped in reservoirs and harnessed for electricity, what once was untamed and free is now humbled, parched, and so yoked to human purposes that in most years it trickles away 100 miles from its oceanic destination.

Waterman writes with informal immediacy in this eye-witness account of the many demands on the Colorado, from irrigating 3.5 million acres of farmland to watering the lawns of Los Angeles. He shows how our profligacy and inexorable climate change spark political conflict, and how we can avert this onrushing ecological crisis. As he follows the river’s natural and cultural history afloat and afoot, Waterman reaches out both to adventure travelers and to scientists, conservationists, environmentalists, and anyone interested in the fragile interplay between nature and humans.

Jonathan Waterman is the author of nine books, has made four television films, and works as a freelance author and filmmaker. In 2004, his writing about the Arctic won the prestigious National Endowment of the Arts Literary Fellowship.

The talk is free and open to the public. The NCTC is located at 698 Conservation Way along Shepherd Grade Road near Shepherdstown.

No tickets or reservations are required.