Whither water?

I love the arcs of this photo: the way they complement each other, with nature mirroring the man-made world, or perhaps the other way around. Although the author and photographer Jonathan Waterman was traveling the Colorado River in part to learn about the loss of water as a resource, I'd say he's got a sculptor's eye.

Waterman will speak May 2 in Mountain View as part of POST's Stegner lecture series, giving glimpses into his experiences following the length of the Colorado River: mountains, mudflats and all.

And it seems likely that a call to action for the river will be involved. Waterman is quoted on his website thusly: "Distant cities, including some of the fastest growing in the nation ... depend on its waters and have transformed it into one of the most diverted and litigated rivers in the world. The Colorado now reaches the sea only in the wettest of years and the Delta, once one of the greatest desert estuaries in the world, has been reduced to a veritable wasteland."

Pictured: Strontia Dam and the waters of the Colorado River heading for Denver. Photo by Jonathan Waterman from "The Colorado River, Flowing Through Conflict," his book with Peter McBride.