Telling critical stories from the edges of the world.
As Expedition Blue Planet explored the Colorado River’s headwaters, John Wesley Powell’s name came up again and again. In this short film Alexandra Cousteau, and the experts she interviewed, elaborate on the story of this remarkable man who rafted the Colorado’s uncharted waters in the late 1800s and foretold of its mismanagement long before it was tamed.
Four months after the Deepwater Horizon disaster Alexandra Cousteau visits the Gulf States to find friends, communities and livelihoods burdened and broken by distrust and uncertainty in the aftermath of the the largest oil spill in US waters. In a region whose heart and soul can be found in the marine bounty of the gulf’s rich waters, Cousteau discovers that people are not only losing their jobs, but their way of life. “Ocean of Doubt: Polluted Waters, Broken Communities” puts a human face and stirring voice to that story of incalculable loss.
Alabama is home to the greatest wealth of freshwater and marine biodiversity in North America. As the BP oil spill continues to cast its shadow over the Gulf Coast, scientists keep a vigilant eye on frogs, sharks, and sperm whales–all indicator species and proxies for ecosystem effects caused by the oil spill and its clean-up efforts.
In July, Expedition Blue Planet explored the headwaters of the Colorado River to investigate how this mighty river is overallocated from the moment its waters touch the ground up in the Rocky Mountains, where the Continental Divide rises like a spine and demarcates the Mississippi watershed that lies to the East from the Colorado watershed that falls to the West. Today we find that this iconic river still means life for the 20 million people who live in its basin — just as it did for the Native Americans, just as it did for the settlers who drove West and claimed it as their own. But the truth is, the minute it touches the ground, we’ve allocated every drop and too often we’re not even judicious in how we use it. In this short film, we speak to key voices in the headwaters region and chart the path of the river’s flow to investigate water use and management issues in the American West. Here, it’s all about what’s downstream.
© Blue Legacy International
In this behind-the-scenes video for Alexandra Cousteau’s Expedition Blue Planet, the team continue their cross-North America trek investigating water issues across the continent. Watch as they muck through the icy cold headwaters of the Colorado River filming “The Headwaters”, raft its biggest water through Cataract Canyon in Utah and make their way up into Canada.
Hoover Dam is the heart of the American west’s water supply, a powerhouse for irrigation and farming in the region. But today a combination of drought and overuse have drained it half dry leaving a 135 foot high “bathtub ring” mark around Lake Mead. Will America’s largest reservoir ever fill up again as the water wars between cities, farmers and nature play out? Alexandra Cousteau’s Expedition Blue Planet investigates.
Expedition Blue Planet 2009 chronicled the interconnectivity of water. A key aspect of the project was its ability to show how individual stories are part of the larger, universal story of an interdependent, global water ecosystem. In this way, we created a new vision for what it means to live in a world where water is our most precious resource, and a plan for what we must do to protect it.
