Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner

Jul 31, 2011 Paula rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, best-reads-of-2010, second-or-third-time-around

A year later, I've given CD a second read and must, finally, award it the 5th star (for whatever that's worth) that it so deserves. One of the most scathing, witty and instructive books of political /environmental/economic journalism that I've ever had the pleasure (and horror) to read. I do so wish Reisner was still around to bring us up to date on this most vital and fascinating subject. (Afterward to revised 1992 edition is as close to contemporary as CD gets).

Brilliant enough for 5 stars, bu...more A year later, I've given CD a second read and must, finally, award it the 5th star (for whatever that's worth) that it so deserves. One of the most scathing, witty and instructive books of political /environmental/economic journalism that I've ever had the pleasure (and horror) to read. I do so wish Reisner was still around to bring us up to date on this most vital and fascinating subject. (Afterward to revised 1992 edition is as close to contemporary as CD gets).

Brilliant enough for 5 stars, but it caused me a bit of reader fatigue due to its relentless comprehensiveness. Impeccably researched, Cadillac Desert meets the highest standards of investigative reportage. Which is not to say that Reisner is absolutely objective (always an illusive goal at best) nor sober in his approach. At times, his tone borders on the sarcastic (as if he were saying, you are not going to believe exactly how incredibly stupid this idea was). His account is apolitical in the sense that he depicts Democrats and Republicans, both on the state and national levels, as bipartisan in their promotion and funding of the most suspect (environmentally, socially, economically)dams and water projects, going back at least as far as the New Deal. Reisner takes a close and critical look at the very notion of irrigation farming in a desert, its costs, benefits and long term consequences (depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer; deadly salinity levels of land and water, the making of “wild river” an oxymoron, etc.). An apt secondary subtitle for the book might be “Water flows uphill toward political power and money.” An entirely concrete example of this aphorism would be the California Aqueduct, particularly that section which carries water over the Tehachapis to L.A: “The water is carried across the Tehachapis in five separate stages. The final cyclopean one, which occurs at the A.D. Edmonston Pumping Plant, raises the water 1926 feet—the Eiffel Tower atop the Empire State—in a single lift . . . . At their peak capacity, if it is ever reached, the Edmonston pumps will require six billion kilowatts of electricity every year . . . . Moving water in California requires more electrical energy than is used by several states.”
First published in 1986 and subsequently revised in 1993, Cadillac Desert, if less prophetic now than it was 20-25 years ago, remains relevant and instructive. And if you ever thought there might be a silver-lining to pork-barrel politics, it’s a must read. In light of the recent financial system “bail-out,” and with many touting “infrastructure” projects as a solution to our current high unemployment and economic malaise, reviewing the history of perhaps the greatest public works program ever anywhere will give you pause. Dams and water projects (California’s Central Valley Project and the Central Arizona Project are just two examples) can have both intended and unintended consequences that make them less than great ideas. Engineers and “experts” (Bureau of Reclamation, Army Corps of Engineers, Water Commissioners, Resource Specialists, etc.) can be as greedy, short-sighted, and blinded by belief in their own expertise and desire for power as anyone else.
Reisner’s description of the proposed Narrows Dam on the Lower South Platte River in Colorado (thankfully, a project that was subsequently abandoned, though it was all too typical of projects that have been built) makes for a good summary:
“Here was a dam that the state engineer said would deliver only a third of the water it promised and could conceivably collapse; a project whose official cost estimate . . . would barely suffice to relocate twenty-six miles of railroad track; a project whose real cost, whatever it turned out to be, would therefore be written off, in substantial measure, to ‘recreation,’ though the water would be unsafe to touch; a project whose prevailing interest rate was one-fifth the rates banks were charging in the late 1970s; a project many of whose beneficiaries owned more land than the law permitted in order to receive subsidized water; a project that might, if the state engineer was correct, seep enough water to turn the town of Fort Morgan into a marsh; a project that would pile more debt onto the Bureau’s Missouri Basin Project; a project that would generate not a single kilowatt of hydroelectric power and would be all but worthless for flood control.”
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Sep 10, 2012 Bettie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, autumn-2012, environmental-issues, north-americas, fraudio, published-1986, sciences, history

Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water - 22 Tapes Unabridged (Part 1 & 2) ~30 hours

http://www.amazon.com/Cadillac-Desert...

From Library Journal: Dams ostensibly provide indispensable economic development through flood control, irrigation, and recreation. Goldsmith and Hildyard, with examples from throughout the world, demolish the common justifications for large dams. They advocate traditional irrigation as environmentally sound and economically beneficial. Reisner fo...more

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May 17, 2008 Heather rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction-misc

this book is a stunning chronicle of the damming of america's rivers, mainly in the west. i felt that i had to wade through far too much detail about the people (politicians, newsmen, townfolk, MORMONS...), and their motives, the paradigms of the old west that contributed, the bills, and the agencies (bureau of reclamation, army corps of engineers...) responsible for these horrors. BUT it was worth it in the end to see the big picture. unfortunately at this point it seems that there is no turnin...more

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Sep 07, 2012 Socraticgadfly rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: science, politics-public-policy, history, environment

A simply great book about the past, present and future of water in the U.S. The focus is on the dry side of America, but not just west of the Rockies. The High Plains and the Ogalalla Aquifer, as well as the Upper Missouri, get extended treatment.

So too does the fact that "rugged Westerners" are ultimately usually socialists when it comes to the issue of water and it being supplied to farms at below cost by the federal government, and acreage limits then being broken.

It's not just the lack of wa...more

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Aug 25, 2012 Jeff Bach rated it 5 of 5 stars

An eye opening view of our most necessary resource for life. I read this in the early 90's in the midst of a first career in environmental consulting. It turns out there is no such thing as "environmental" consulting. It's really more like "industrial" consulting. So reading this book while I was in the midst of doing work with Waste Management as a client and doing my part in assessing the feasibility of gold mines was especially bittersweet. It made me sick to be part of the problem.

Almost tw...more

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Jul 17, 2012 Elderberrywine rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: political-science

An very readable and immensely detailed history of water projects and dams in the western US. I'm the sixth owner of this well-used paperback (based on the various notes and underlinings and the pile of bar code stickers on the back - a shout-out for the University of Idaho!), but it honestly should be required reading for all residents of this region. From monstrous dams (and a few monstrous dam blow-outs - one just a mile further up the canyon from where I live) to the earliest irrigation proj...more

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Jun 22, 2011 Matthew rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book was a slog for me, and yet one of the most important I've ever read. I guess my main complaint is style (he often takes off for too long on a tangent before finally circling back around to pick up his original point). But that's my only complaint, and it might just be the best book I've read that shows in matter of fact ways (as opposed to partisan) the devastating effectiveness of what happens when conservative's worst nightmare ("Big Government") and liberal's (the corruption of gov'...more This book was a slog for me, and yet one of the most important I've ever read. I guess my main complaint is style (he often takes off for too long on a tangent before finally circling back around to pick up his original point). But that's my only complaint, and it might just be the best book I've read that shows in matter of fact ways (as opposed to partisan) the devastating effectiveness of what happens when conservative's worst nightmare ("Big Government") and liberal's (the corruption of gov't. by big business interests) combine to rape our environment while simultaneously bilking taxpayers out of billions in order to virtually give away free water rights to wealthy agribusiness. But it also details a component of "manifest destiny" that is rarely discussed, that not only explains how and why the west was won (as in conquered, based on a belief that God wanted us to so badly to settle the west that he would make crop growing land out of desert) but how this belief, along with the myth of the "rugged individualists" that were doing the conquering, created an entire western population that actually have NO BUSINESS (from 'what nature intended' perspective) BEING THERE!

I began reading this book after taking my sons to see the movie "Rango" which is actually a kids version of "Chinatown" (minus, thankfully, the rape and incest). And while I was primarily interested in the so called "California Water Wars", this book gave me a stunning history of how and why gov't. and business interests combined to conquer nature (destroy it) in order to settle and make farm land out of desert land that essentially covers the entire western HALF of the United States. And no matter what your politics, ALL ARE TO BLAME in the environmental mess created, for the millions who will soon be without water in most of those states, and the billions all of us who are paying so that wealthy interests could have access to shockingly cheap water rights! While the population of that entire half of the nation rails against the abuses of "big gov't." (virtually all of those states vote GOP) the ONLY REASON THEY HAVE WATER WAS DUE TO FDR, THE NEW DEAL, AND SPECIFICALLY THE BUREAU OF RECLAMATION!! They literally would not be there without them! And of course the flip side of that is that gov't. MUST ALSO TAKE THE BLAME IN BEING A MAJOR FACTOR in the settling of those lands, trashing the environment, and putting us billions of dollars in debt so a bunch of thankless westerners could show how rugged they were (thanks to gov't. policies they normally hate) by converting desert into farmland for the wealthy!! And while the hypocrisy of that ilk is not surprising, I also think people like Rachel Maddow should do more research on the subject of the effects of damming rivers out west before standing proudly in front of Hoover! (less)

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Mar 04, 2011 Max rated it 5 of 5 stars

In 1986, Marc Reisner published a book called Cadillac Desert: The American West and its Disappearing Water. In it, Reisner fastidiously documents the appropriation of the West’s most valuable resources, water. The book, now 20 years old, prophetically detailed many of the problems of water supply and land degradation that we are now facing today. Water is the lifeblood of humanity and how we care for this resource will determine our fate. Cadillac Desert is scathing critique of American policy...more In 1986, Marc Reisner published a book called Cadillac Desert: The American West and its Disappearing Water. In it, Reisner fastidiously documents the appropriation of the West’s most valuable resources, water. The book, now 20 years old, prophetically detailed many of the problems of water supply and land degradation that we are now facing today. Water is the lifeblood of humanity and how we care for this resource will determine our fate. Cadillac Desert is scathing critique of American policy on water development, specifically towards the Bureau of Reclamation’s gun-slinging approach towards dam building. This book was the seminal work on water development and it reverberations will continue for however long we live in the Western United States.

In all of Marc Reisner's work, he explores the relation humans have with their environment and how we have put extreme amounts of stress on that relationship. Throughout Cadillac Desert, Reisner describes the extent to which the government has augmented the environment of California, as succinctly described here:

"The whole state thrives, even survives, by moving water from where it is, and presumably isn't needed, to where it isn't, and presumably is needed. No other state has done as much to fructify its deserts, make over its flora and fauna, and rearrange the hydrology God gave it. No other place has put as many people where they probably have no business being. There is no place like it anywhere on earth. Thirty-one million people (more than the population of Canada), an economy richer than all but seven nations' in the world, one third of the table food grown in the United States---and none of it remotely conceivable within the preexisting natural order (333)."

Before Cadillac Desert, people looked at dams and other water developments as an example of human ingenuity and necessary for continued human existence. These leviathan alterations though have left nature severely scarred and Reisner uncompromisingly details the effects uncontrolled water development has had:

“What federal water development has amounted to, in the end, is a uniquely productive, creative vandalism... of both our natural heritage and our economic future... Glen Canyon is gone. The Colorado Delta is dead. The Missouri bottomlands have disappeared. Nine out of ten acres of wetlands in California have vanished, and with them millions of migratory birds. The great salmon runs in the Columbia, the Sacramento, the San Joaquin, and dozens of tributaries are diminished or extinct. The prairie is civilized and is dull… And it didn’t happen only in the West. Much of the same thing happened in the East, especially in the South, where an incredible diversity and history and beauty in the old river valleys lie submerged under hundreds of featureless reservoirs... Who is going to pay to rescue the salt-poisoned land? To dredge trillions of tons of silt out of the expiring reservoirs? . . . Somewhere down the line our descendants are going to inherit a bill for all this vaunted success.''(485-86)
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Feb 08, 2010 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars

this is a subject i find fascinating, but if you are not into reading about the west and more specifically its water supply, don't read this book. if however, you do like that subject, this is a great book. it is a bit long, and some of the chapters get repetitive (the bureau of reclamation builds a huge, stupid dam, the corps of engineers builds a huge, stupid dam, the bureau builds another huge, stupid dam...), however the history of water policy in the west in one of the biggest national sto...more

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May 22, 2009 Thomas rated it 4 of 5 stars

Why would anyone read a 500 page book about irrigation and dam building? If you are curious why Los Angeles has a population of 10 million, and why California has one of the richest economies in the world, this book has the answers. What began as an attempt to deliver water to poor, struggling farmers, became a nearly unstoppable machine that made wealthy men richer, concentrated political power in the hands of a few, and made a mockery of the notion that our country is based on a free-market ec...more Why would anyone read a 500 page book about irrigation and dam building? If you are curious why Los Angeles has a population of 10 million, and why California has one of the richest economies in the world, this book has the answers. What began as an attempt to deliver water to poor, struggling farmers, became a nearly unstoppable machine that made wealthy men richer, concentrated political power in the hands of a few, and made a mockery of the notion that our country is based on a free-market economy.

The Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers have built thousands of dams in the past hundred years. Some of them made sense-- they provide hydroelectric power, help flood control, irrigate land, and provide drinking water to cities. But many more dams are economic boondoggles, constructed primarily for political favors, subsidized by taxpayer dollars, and ruining the land that it is supposed to help.

There is a lot of doom and gloom in this book, but the afterward to the revised edition leaves us with hope. The values of our society have changed, and new dam projects have largely ceased. Part of it is due to the fact that few economically feasible projects remain, though that didn't stop us in the past. But with the population in the American West continuing to grow and aquifers rapidly depleting, an upcoming water crisis looms in our future. What will we do? Will we continue in our profligate ways and become water imperialists, taking advantage of our proximity to Canada and diverting their vast quantities of "unused" rivers? Or are we going to change our policies, eliminate waste and perverse subsidies, make farmers pay market prices for their water, and retire land kept alive by taxpayer money? Can we overcome powerful lobbies that maintain the status quo? Can individual states (and their congressional representatives) focus on the greater good and welfare of their constituents beyond the next election cycle? Successful and lasting change will only come about through great debate and even greater compromise. We will be forced to sacrifice certain goods for the sake of others, but there is really no alternative. Protecting our water supply will require a tremendous restructuring of both energy policy and the agricultural industry. The future is uncertain but potential for positive change is exciting.

My only complaint about this book is that it is too long. One could cut 100 pages without losing any of the power that it packs. Still, it is a tremendous resource-- informing the general reader about a poorly understood aspect our past, and warning us that business as usual will end badly for all of us. The time to act is now.(less)

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May 01, 2007 Miranda rated it 2 of 5 stars

Water, water everywhere and not a drop of it to drink...or in this case, to irrigate the American West. This book painstakingly chronicles the stories and political hoo-ha behind the major water projects that opened up the American West. The most fascinating story was about the watering of Los Angeles, but from there, the book gets really tedious. It makes me glad I'm moving back to the slightly more sustainable lands of the east coast.

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Jun 04, 2012 Jenny rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

This book was written in the 1980s, about the building of dams and pumping of groundwater in the American West. The American West, which would be a desert if left alone. And Los Angeles, a city built in the middle of the desert without water. What, exactly, was wrong with these people, deciding to build farms where there was no water, and build big cities where there was no water? Well, it was kind of a moral issue. The United States started out as a country of farmers. These farmers are more 's...more

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Apr 20, 2011 Penni rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was dense and hard to keep straight at times (so many people, so many locations), but it is a fantastic history of our country from the point of view of our most precious resource. I do get the feeling it is a bit biased, as the book rails against the Bureau of Reclamation (unendingly), the Army Corps of Engineers, big/factory farms, and many politicians. I couldn't help but agree with everything he said. Government agencies that are only motivated by continuing to create work for them...more

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Jul 11, 2010 Caleb rated it 3 of 5 stars

A read based on the Good Reads rec of Mr Patrick Harris. Harris apparently tolerates idealism more than me. An interesting topic--the West and its water troubles--is mired in writing long on polemic for sections and needing more facts. I was confused for long stretches what Reisner wanted. He was very close to no-growth, but not quite there, and maybe just anti-farming, which is reasonable. Also, the book has been out for almost 30 years and been revised, but suffers from editing problems still...more

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May 09, 2010 Anna rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: borrowed

This book is still incredibly relevant, despite being published 20+ years ago. The history of the American West is so closely tied to water politics. Overlooking the issues Reisner covers here would give an incomplete picture of what really happens behind the scenes of Western development.

When I first moved to California's San Joaquin Valley as a newspaper reporter, I read a few passages from this book to better educate myself on the history and long-standing battles of the region, and these exc...more

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Apr 12, 2009 Tarn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Fascinating and journalistic look into the way that water has built the West and the barely-believable boondoggles that occur[red:]. Interesting biographical - almost titillating - information on certain bureaucrats and colorful outrage at some of the more egregious episodes of public bilking too. My main criticisms are 1) the book bogs down a bit after exciting, page-turning episodes involving the Colorado River, Los Angeles, or the foundations of the Bureau of Reclamation, and 2) the subject m...more

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Oct 10, 2012 Juanita rated it 3 of 5 stars

Hmmm,this is one of those books one SHOULD read if one lives in the desert, which we do. This book, along with Wallace Stegner's books about the west and water, are necessary because we are just being incredibly stupid, wasteful and non sustainable living here in the desert. This book details just how bad it is, from dams to decisions. The Afterward added to the revised edition is a bit more optimistic, but still, we just cannot continue as we are. I rate the book 3 stars not because it is ordin...more

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May 24, 2009 Matt rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a fascinating history of dam-building in the American West. I did not know that the book would be primarily about dams when I bought it, because the subtitle is "The american west and its disappearing water" which seems like it could be more broad, but I got somewhat intrigued by dams after seeing some big ones out west, so the potentially misleading subtitle didn't reduce my enjoyment of the book.

Key points:

1. The Bureau of Reclamation and the Corps of Engineers are two government ag...more

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Sep 30, 2012 Wayne Wilson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Who'd think that a lengthy book on the politics, mechanics and realities of water development could be an engaging read? Well, I didn't until I saw the catchy title of this great book and was absorbed (pun intended) into it. As a former Arizonan, experienced Grand Canyon hiker/fisherman/camper, seasoned desert hiker, Vegas tourist, Lake Mead visitor and Lake Powell fun-ster, I still can't decide if I should love or abhor the Department of the Interior, Lake Powell, Lake Mead...Water is both the...more

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Dec 28, 2011 lyell bark rated it 5 of 5 stars

gr8 history about how the western usa was turned from an arid, unlivable hellscape with no water into an arid, unlivable hellscape with lots of water at great economic and environmental cost. thanks.

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Mar 10, 2013 Bob Stocker rated it 4 of 5 stars

Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert is the classic study of water issues in the western United States. I can't recall who first suggested that I read it. I wish I'd read it sooner. Today it's 26 years out of date.

Even though the information in Cadillac Desert is dated, we still have a Congress that's less interested in addressing national priorities than it is in producing pork to satisfy lobbyists and keep the home folks happy. The first priority of nearly every representative and senator seems to b...more Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert is the classic study of water issues in the western United States. I can't recall who first suggested that I read it. I wish I'd read it sooner. Today it's 26 years out of date.

Even though the information in Cadillac Desert is dated, we still have a Congress that's less interested in addressing national priorities than it is in producing pork to satisfy lobbyists and keep the home folks happy. The first priority of nearly every representative and senator seems to be generating campaign contributions and getting re-elected. This leads to policies like paying farmers in some states not to grow wheat while government-funded irrigation projects provide subsidized water to wheat farmers in other states -- with taxpayers and consumers paying the bill for both programs.

Some of the specifics may differ today, but I have no doubt that the general picture hasn't changed. The government certainly continues to coddle powerful financial interests like big corporate farms at the same time it pays lip service to things like supporting small farmers. Ironically, southwestern states whose citizens strongly profess "fierce independence" and worry about "creeping socialism" are beholden to government handouts for their very existence. Without government-supplied water much of the southwest would dry up and return to something like its natural desert condition -- though it would likely take eons for the earth to recover from insults inflicted by the Bureau of Reclamation, the Army Corps of Engineers, and various state and local governments.

Sadly, much of the "progress" associated with water projects is temporary. Over time, reservoirs will fill with silt, ground water will be depleted, and irrigated farmland will succumb to salt. It would be nice to have an update to see how much closer the past 26 years has brought us to the disaster that Reisner predicted. If Cadillac Desert were more current, I'd give it five stars. Nevertheless it's still worth reading. I going to give it four stars.(less)

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Jun 13, 2010 Kenny Short rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: History buffs and Western Americans

Shelves: history

For anyone interested in the history of the West and all those who live in the American West and are concerned with its future, this is a must read book. Chalk full of little known, scandalous, and emblematic tales of the settling, development and growth of the primarily desert West, Cadillac Desert is a great read in the sense that it mixes the great academic historical research with good story-telling. One of the best history books I've read and learned from, there is more to know in this book...more

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May 13, 2008 Billy added it

Shelves: boy-interrupted

...just a chapter or two in, i already predict this will be one of the more important books i read this decade

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Jan 05, 2011 Steven Peterson rated it 3 of 5 stars

An interesting work. Water in the American Southwest is a key issue. The land itself is pretty arid and water is at a premium. Simply, there is not enough water for the many competing demands--from native Americans to water promised Mexico to water in the American West. This work chronicles the struggles for various regions to get the water that they need. It is not always a pretty story (Los Anegeles' thirst for water and some of the tactics used is, at least, unsavory). Sometimes, I think that...more

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Apr 25, 2012 Ali rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book skates away with 3 starts simply because of its content. If not for the wealth of information about the development of irrigation, dams and reservoirs throughout the American West (and all of the corruption, politics, backwards economics, scheming, and enormous subsidies involved), I would rate this book even lower. It is poorly written, with ridiculous and out-of-place metaphors that detract from what the author is discussing. Also, if the author had spent more time revising the book,...more

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Oct 03, 2012 Lara rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: on-nook, nonfiction

Despite being written in the mid 1980s, Cadillac Desert is still relevant. It was especially interesting for me because my most recent job tied in closely with water sourcing in western states.

I had no idea how much the politics of water shaped the 20th century US (or, for that matter, how much water affected 20th century politics), nor did I have the slightest concept of the extent to which human interference with fresh water has affected the American West.

The densely-packed detail can be slow...more

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Aug 02, 2011 Vance Dubberly rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you drink water you should read this. It will tell you how you filled your glass. Water is at the center of all human life and the process of funneling it into a form that can be used by millions of people in predominantly dry areas is astounding, entertaining, and quite grim. The book is an interesting mix of good story telling, good history, good questions, and deep knowledge. Can't recommend this enough, both for it's subject matter and for the kind of clear non-politicized information it...more

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Sep 04, 2009 Katie rated it 5 of 5 stars

This nonfiction account of our society's utter failure to manage our water resources is the best nonfiction book I've read since I was 16 and obsessed with Carl Sagan. Read it if you've ever appreciated a wild and scenic river, if you want to know how LA became a sprawling mess, if you want to know how the Grand Coulee Dam made world war II winable, and if you want to know how big dams helped bring down Jimmy Carter's presidency. This book is awesome and terrible. I read this book over a year ag...more

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Sep 21, 2009 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: for-fun, nonfiction

I wish the book were more current however the astute follower of the water issues in our country today should be able to pick up where Reisner leaves off. It is fun to view the areas spoken of in the book with Google Earth, while reading about them. Follow American's great rivers and see the stair-stepping dams in succession. See the snaking aqueducts and the islands of green they create in the middle of barren deserts. This book does indeed make you stop and think but the genie is out of the bo...more

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Mar 16, 2013 Aaron Arnold rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: economics, history, politics, read-in-2013, science, favorites

Cadillac Desert is a tremendous work of natural science, history, environmentalism, and politics, and despite it having dated somewhat since its publication, it should be considered required reading for anyone interested in those subjects, or who happens to live anywhere west of the hundredth meridian.

It starts off by recounting the history of the exploration and development of the West, with a particular focus on John Wesley Powell, a fascinating figure in his own right. It then moves to the de...more Cadillac Desert is a tremendous work of natural science, history, environmentalism, and politics, and despite it having dated somewhat since its publication, it should be considered required reading for anyone interested in those subjects, or who happens to live anywhere west of the hundredth meridian.

It starts off by recounting the history of the exploration and development of the West, with a particular focus on John Wesley Powell, a fascinating figure in his own right. It then moves to the development and settling of the West, in particular the city of Los Angeles, the creation of new institutions to exploit and develop water resources, and the increasingly desperate and deranged water projects that were constructed at the behest of powerful groups who wanted to maintain the explosive growth of the region, and not always with the best interests of the citizenry at heart. An endless series of dams, diversions, and canals were constructed, as various Western states battled with their interest groups, each other, and the federal Bureau of Reclamation to obtain the water they needed to maintain their growth. The book closes with a discussion of the North American Water and Power Alliance, a water engineering project of such ludicrous scope - damming nearly every river in British Columbia and shipping the water to Los Angeles through transcontinental canals - that it would seem preposterous if not for all of the previous projects that came before it, and there's also an epilogue that shows the tangible consequences to salmon fisheries of interfering with the natural flow of water.

It's an extremely well-written book that will teach you a lot about the West, but it's also a polemic that raises a lot of questions about how the West got to be where it is today, and as I was reading it I found myself thinking a lot about the political dynamic on display here. A big chunk of the West is a lifeless, waterless hellhole that has no business being settled at all, much less farmed for crops like cotton or rice. Yet time and time again, extremely right-wing officials went running to the federal government to build them more and more dams and canals with extremely dubious financial or environmental merits, sucking money and people away from perfectly habitable states. As you read 700 pages of this, it's almost enough to make you into a states' rights kind of guy. I'm not keen on that almost meaningless catchphrase at all, but I think most opposition to states' rights comes from Civil War-era social issues like the South's miserable record on discrimination. Would states' rights be more acceptable in a purely economic context, like Canadian provinces? Where would NYC be today if it hadn't had to keep shoveling money into stupid canals across Arizona that were a waste of space, a waste of land, a waste of power, and even more of a waste of water? Weren't the richer states of the Northeast subsidizing selfishness in the Southwest? Is the New Deal vision of infrastructure as progress, the TVAs and LCRAs, simply a mistake?

Reisner has an excellent paragraph that makes this very point: "The irrigation farmers not only had come to expect heavily subsidized water as a kind of right, allowing them to pretend that the region's preeminent natural fact - a drastic scarcity of that substance - was an illusion. They now believed that if it turned out they couldn't afford the water, the Bureau (which is to say, the nation's taxpayers) would practically give it away. These farmers were about the most conservative faction in what may be the most politically conservative of all the fifty states. They regularly sent to Congress politicians eager to demolish the social edifice built by the New Deal - to abolish welfare, school lunch programs, aid to the handicapped, funding for the arts, even to sell off some of the national parks and public lands. But their constituents had become the ultimate example of what they decried, so coddled by the government that they lived in the cocoonlike world of a child. They remained oblivious to what their CAP water would cost them but were certain it would be offered to them at a price they could afford. The farmers had become the very embodiment of the costly, irrational welfare state they loathed - and they had absolutely no idea."

To that end, I was also struck by the similarity between those farmers, who were often incredibly reactionary oligarchs in their states, and businessmen who make their money off of things like oil, gas, or railroads (and often these were the same people). Is there something inherent to natural resource extraction that encourages plutocrat behavior as opposed to, say, software development? I have an unprovable pet theory about how the different incentives that come from making money off of a rivalrous and legally excludable good like natural resources makes entrepreneurs more likely to be dickheads than someone who gets rich off of developing human capital, but even this weren't true, it's remarkable how the same people who Reisner quotes as saying "Contracts are made to be broken" if the result is cheaper water will lobby their Congressmen for taxpayer-subsidized boondoggles. Reisner again: "In the Congress, water projects are a kind of currency, like wampum, and water development itself is a kind of religion. Senators who voted for drastic cuts in the school lunch program in 1981 had no compunction about voting for $20 billion worth of new Corps of Engineers projects in 1984, the largest such authorization ever. A jobs program in a grimly depressed city in the Middle West, where unemployment among minority youth is more than 50 percent, is an example of the discredited old welfare mentality; a $300 million irrigation project in Nebraska giving supplemental water to a few hundred farmers is an intelligent, farsighted investment in the nation’s future."

And that's another great aspect of the book, where it shows the perversities that this grand construction spree enabled in the federal bureaucracy itself. An astonishing percentage of these public works were built not so much to solve specific problems, but as part of a turf war between the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers. A dam could be used for flood control, irrigation, navigation/recreation, or drinking water, and there were tons of shell games between those uses so that one agency could steal a project away from the other. Bureau of Reclamation head Floyd Dominy, who was profiled a bit more sympathetically in John McPhee's masterful Encounters With the Archdruid, comes off as an evil civil servant version of LBJ in his ceaseless efforts to maximize his Bureau's budget and prestige regardless of how useless his dams were. He encouraged lots of cool scumbag behavior by Congressmen noted for it, like Jim Wright, the "Representative from American Airlines" who prevented Southwest Airlines from flying out of Love Field in Dallas to all but a few places just to protect American Airlines' headquarters at nearby DFW. Jimmy Carter was the only President to try to take on this system, and Congressmen of both parties and all ideological persuasions laughed in his face. Decades earlier, badass Senator Paul Douglas also tried to stand in the system's way, with a similarly depressing lack of results.

And in a way, it is morbidly fascinating to read about all of the underhanded deals that went down to do things like make LA the metastasized monster it is today. If you've seen the excellent film Chinatown the basic story will be familiar, but it's still impressive to read about William Mulholland's corrupt deals with Joseph Lippincott and diabolical Robert Moses-esque plots to gain Owens Valley's water rights, build aqueduct, and expand the city all at once. Or to see how shady contractors like Bechtel began life with shady contracts to build Boulder Canyon Dam. Or to learn how otherwise iconic stars like Woody Guthrie were hired to propagandize dams for the government in the name of Progress.

And on and on until you're confronted with what's more than an ideological dilemma, but an existential dilemma: what are these pharaonic structures doing to our civilization in the long run? Reisner mentions irrigating cultures like the Hohokam, the Sumerians, and the Egyptians, and how frail they ended up being. China wasn't yet on its dam-building tear in 1986 when the book was published, but he discusses the problems that the construction of the Aswan Dam had already had for Egypt, and how the country was likely to be forced to construct yet more gargantuan works to solve the problems of its earlier ones. He doesn't use this language, but it felt like a sort of Jevon's Paradox for water - each dam you build helps ameliorate groundwater depletion from dumb farming decisions, but that just ends up encouraging even more farming that ends up being a net loss: "illegal subsidies enrich big farmers, whose excess production depresses crop prices nationwide and whose waste of cheap water creates an environmental calamity that could cost billions to solve." In my city of Austin our aquifer seems like it will last a while, but it's always worth pondering the true sustainability of life on the wrong side of the Hundredth Meridian, and this book is one of the best at that you'll find.(less)

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