James P McMahon

Jim McMahon started Sweetwater LLC (www.cleanairpurewater.com) in September 2002 after an extensive search for a business that he could operate from his home in southern Utah. Jim has worked in the environmental field since 1974 when he launched one of the first recycling collection programs in the country in Seattle. He worked in recycling until 1987 when he took a one year sabbatical in the French West Indies. Upon his return to the states, he moved to Denver where he began working as a freelance writer and sought a way to work with rivers. In 1995 he got a chance to manage The Nature Conservancy’s Mackinaw River Project in Illinois. Then, in January 1999, he was able to return to the West when he accepted a position with Grand Canyon Trust, working on the Virgin River in southwest Utah.

Jim has authored an essay reflecting on the development of recycling entitled ‘Closing The Loop’ in the book The Next West, published by Island Press in 1997. While living in Denver he wrote policy papers and opinion editorials on western land use issues as a senior fellow for Independence Institute, a non-profit think tank. He has also published numerous articles, editorials, and short fiction. Jim holds a BS in Ecology from the University of Illinois, coursework toward an MA in Deep Ecology from Naropa Institute in Boulder, CO and has extensive training in river ecology. He studied the ancient energy healing methods of the Quechua Indians of Peru with the Four Winds Society located in Park City. Someone once said that Jim has a passion for learning and is always up to something.

He has a son, Emrys, and a daughter, Jacqueline. He works from his log home overlooking a headwaters stream in the mountains of southern Utah. ‘Life doesn’t get any better than this…. ‘