Green Business Roundtable:

River of Lost Souls

The Science, Politics, and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Disaster

Jonathan Thompson, Author, Journalist and Editor

Topic: In Southwest Colorado innovation and genius was almost always employed to get more wealth out of the land along the Animas River. And today, the land — and those of us who live on it — are still paying the price for that innovation. But today, there are innovators and inventors and entrepreneurs quietly working on this problem, and they’ve come up with some amazing solutions that not only reduce pollution, but power and heat homes in the process. The problem is, there’s no profit in utilizing these innovations. That’s where common-sense policies, ones that incentivize companies to focus some of their R&D dollars toward pollution problem-solving, come in. There is hope for a cleaner future.

Speaker: Jonathan Thompson is an award-winning freelance author, journalist and editor. He’s a native Westerner with deep roots in southwestern Colorado. He usually writes about the land, culture and communities of the American West, with an emphasis on energy development, pollution, land-use politics and economics. But he’s fascinated by the complexity of the world around him, and is happy to delve into almost any topic. He is the author of River of Lost Souls: The Science, Politics, and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Disaster (Torrey House Press, February 2018) and is a contributing editor at High Country News. In 2016, Jonathan was awarded the Society of Environmental Journalist’s Outstanding Beat Reporting, Small Market.

The Green Business Roundtable (GBR) is one of the most innovative and successful lunchtime networking events in Durango. Routinely attended by business leaders, elected officials, and influential community members, GBR inspires forward-thinking discussions on timely issues affecting our region. Local, regional and national speakers engage the community in a diverse array of topics at the crossroads of business, the regional economy and environmental stewardship. It is held on the second Wednesday of the month, September to April, at the Henry Strater Theater.

Send a note to info@sanjuancitizens.org if you want to receive monthly emails with details about upcoming topics and speakers.