Sentinel of the San Juan

For more than 10,000 years, many different types of people, like the Clovis, Ancestral Puebloans, Spanish explorers, miners, Mormon settlers, ranchers, and present-day Native Americans like the Ute and Navajo, have lived along the forested banks, sprawling meadows, and sandstone canyons of the 383-mile-long San Juan River, a major tributary to the Colorado. Today, approximately 11,500 abandoned gold and silver mines exist in the southern San Juan Mountains—the river’s headwaters. In 2015, 3 million gallons of toxic waste water from the Gold King Mine (which closed in 1923) accidentally spilled high concentrations of arsenic, copper, cadmium, and lead flowed into Cement Creek the Animas River, then the San Juan River, and ultimately into the Colorado River at Lake Powell. The contamination resulted in an estimated $400 million in economic losses.

Signed fine art prints available.
Please contact Colleen Miniuk at cms@cms-photo.com for pricing on a variety of sizing, printing, and finishing options.

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