Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water

by Marc Reisner

But the biggest and most unyielding obstacle would not even be the enormous cost. It would be the man who, Udall foolishly felt, he could persuade to lead the bill through Congress—a pugnacious, five-foot-ten-inch, third-term Senator and fellow Democrat from Washington state named Henry Jackson. In June of 1965, with no discernible opposition, Senator Henry Jackson tacked an innocent-looking rider onto an innocuous-seeming bill that established standardized guidelines for the allocation of costs to fish and wildlife enhancement. What the rider did, in a couple of brief sentences, was prohibit the Bureau of Reclamation from undertaking feasibility studies that Congress did not approve in advance. The effect of the maneuver, which few recognized at first, was the same as if Jackson had strung a six-hundred-volt electrified fence along the entire south bank of the Columbia River. Without a feasibility study, the Bureau couldn’t approach Congress for authorization. Without a Congressional authorization, it couldn’t build. Explaining his amendment to a couple of reporters who were smart enough to see what it meant, Jackson made no mention of the Columbia River. He was annoyed, he said, by the Bureau’s habit of “working up local interest and enthusiasm for projects in the field before presenting its case to Congress.” Such tactics, he said, put Congress in a “take it or leave it position” when the Bureau came to authorization hearings with a gaggle of local politicians and noisy...