Goodreads asked Jonathan P. Thompson:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Jonathan P. Thompson I was sitting in my home office in Durango, Colorado, working on a story about the Four Corners Methane Hot Spot, which is a Delaware-sized plume of potent greenhouse gases that is hovering over my homeland, and is probably mostly the result of oil and gas development. And I saw this tweet that said that 1 million gallons of wastewater had spilled from a mine near Silverton, where I once lived, and it was headed my way via the Animas River. It turned out to be 3 million gallons. Even so, while it was alarming, I didn't consider it to be extraordinary: Similar spills had happened in the Animas many times in the past. And then there was that methane hotspot... Anyway, the spill turned out to get a huge amount of international attention, but most of it was lacking in context. This "disaster" was just the most visible piece of a massive, region-wide pollution disaster that has been unfolding for over a century, among a rich regional history. I wanted to get that context out there, and a book seemed the best way to go.

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