The grassroots campaign to save a national icon.

A couple of us [bumped into] some government workers in the foyer of this plush hotel ... The workers were having a chat, and we stopped to say hi, and have a bit of a yarn. One of the Natural Resources workers, a bureaucrat, but a friendly one, shook her head, saying, 'You guys are mad. You're taking on Goliath. It's impossible.' I remember laughing, and saying, 'But didn't David win?'
GENEVIEVE FITZGERALD, SNOWY RIVER CAMPAIGNER

When the residents of Dalgety, a tiny hamlet on the Snowy River in NSW, learnt their caravan park was to be closed, they were appalled. For them, it meant the death of their town, which had been in slow decline since the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme dammed the river in the 1960s. The residents decided they would not stand for it. But to save Dalgety, they first had to stop the river from dying of thirst...

In Snowy River Story, Claire Miller recounts the stirring tale of the small-town campaign by Dalgety and Orbost to restore water to the legendary river - a lopsided battle waged against powerful commercial interests and governments that did not want to know. Farmers, city dwellers, bureaucrats and politicians were caught up in the dramatic events that captured the imagination of the Australian people and climaxed with a government fighting for its life, and a historic political deal.

Claire Miller is a senior journalist for The Age newspaper. She has a special interest in the environment and state and national news. She has been a journalist for twenty years and has covered the campaign to save the Snowy since 1999. This is her first book.