Word: river
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...days into a rafting trip down the Franklin River in Tasmania's southwest, you'd think getting wet wouldn't worry me. True, I've fallen off the raft, fallen into the raft, been drenched and dunked and dipped so many times I never feel completely dry. But I haven't been wet like this. Maybe the siren-like chattering of the pure waters distracts us - in any case, we're careless on this rapid, too slow and uncoordinated in our approach, and too late to change course when we realize our error. The current of a mighty river doesn...
...entranced as a platypus glides underwater alongside us, and the chaos that ensues when a branch catches one raft as we scoot over a short drop, pitching three of us head first into the churning current and ripping the raft's floor. But we're quickly succumbing to the river's magnificence; its sweet-tasting, clear waters, tinged brown by the tannin leaching off plants, surging and meandering between banks crowded with a jostling throng of trees, tall leatherwoods dropping white blossoms into the foam-covered eddies. Thick forest stretches away in every direction, and there is no sign...
...river's most dangerous section boils and rages for 10 km between steep slopes of impenetrable forest, and seeing it we realize why we were asked to sign such a staggeringly comprehensive insurance disclaimer. Most of the rapids in this treacherous gorge, where water levels surge rapidly after heavy rains, can't be done by raft. But while references to portaging in the trip notes conjured images of carrying the rafts down paths on the river bank, the reality in this boulder-strewn obstacle course is vastly different. It takes us two long days to traverse the gorge, from which...
...knows when the drought will end. Scientists believe this dry spell, which has plagued a broad swath of the West since 1999, is more typical of the region than its 60 million inhabitants would care to admit. As Charles Ester, chief hydrologist for Arizona's Salt River Project, a major provider of water and electricity, puts it, "What we took as a period of normal rainfall in the past century was actually a period of abundance...
Consider, for example, the 1922 compact that determines the allocation of water from the Colorado River. Scientists have shown, by studying tree rings and other historical evidence, that the allocation was based on water flows that were the highest they had been for more than 475 years. By contrast, the flows since 1999 rank among the lowest. As a result, Lake Powell, the giant reservoir created on the Colorado by the Glen Canyon Dam, stands some 60% below capacity and seems destined to fall even lower. No wonder that states like Colorado--whose rights to that water are trumped...