Holding Back the River: The Struggle Against Nature on America's Waterways

A revelatory work of reporting on the men and women wrestling to harness and preserve America’s most vital natural resource: our rivers.

The Mississippi. The Missouri. The Ohio. America’s rivers are the very lifeblood of our country. We need them for nourishing crops, for cheap bulk transportation, for hydroelectric power, for fresh drinking water. Rivers are also part of our mythology, our collective soul; they are Mark Twain, Led Zeppelin, and the Delta Blues. But as infrastructure across ...