Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water

by Marc Reisner

As far as Riter was concerned, there was only one way to face it. “It is futile to argue about an inadequate water supply,” he wrote to Dominy. “[F]uture development in the Colorado River Basin is dependent upon the future importation of water to augment the dependable supply in the basin.” He suggested that, “as a minimum,” the Central Arizona Project legislation pending before Congress be rewritten to contain “a conditional authorization of an import plan of at least 2.5 million acre-feet.” Riter didn’t say where 2.5 million acre-feet of water from outside the basin should come from. But he knew, and Dominy knew, that there were only a few places where it could come from. That much unappropriated water couldn’t be found within eight hundred miles. It could come from the rivers of far-northern California. It could come from the Pacific Northwest. Or it could come from Canada.