Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water

by Marc Reisner

Without a feasibility study—which Jackson, as chairman of the Senate Interior Committee, would never allow—the Columbia diversion was stillborn. What is more interesting is how quickly the Trinity Diversion died with it, even though Jackson had not publicly opposed it. One reason may have been that Los Angeles viewed it, as it had viewed the United Western Investigation, as a threat—an implied source of water that wasn’t the Colorado River (it didn’t mind the Columbia because that source was really big). But another and better reason was that it didn’t make any economic sense. The Trinity River offered too little water at too great an expense. No matter what the cost or opposition, the Colorado Basin had to get its hands on the Klamath, the Snake, or the Columbia; those were the only rivers left in the American West that were worth thinking about.