HEADWATERS edited by Linny Stovall (Left...

HEADWATERS edited by Linny Stovall (Left Bank Books/Blue Heron: $9.95; 158 pp., illustrated, paperback original). In this lively collection of essays about water, Brenda Patterson recalls the elation of swimming with dolphins in a Hawaiian lagoon. Ken Olsen chronicles his battle with Giardia in Montana, while Marc Reisner describes a successful conservation program among California rice farmers. However, editor Linny Stovall made some odd choices: Marusya Bociurkiw’s account of “cruising the lesbian ocean” seems irrelevant, and Ellen Meloy’s overwrought descriptions of the artificially maintained verdure of Las Vegas are more effortful than entertaining.