The Colorado Provides Drinking Water to 40 Million People. Do They Know What Utah Does To It Upstream?

From the water, the White River canyon was a scene worthy of Ansel Adams. Swallows darted in and out of mud houses packed on the underside of the soaring sandstone cliffs. A lone elk wandered the hillside, while sheep noshed along the water, tended by a man on a horse striking an iconic Western pose up on the ridge. But then, as we drifted peacefully around a bend, the stench of oil and other volatile organic compounds engulfed our little flotilla of rubber rafts in an invisible cloud of toxic gasses,...