Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water

by Marc Reisner

Udall and Dominy, in other words, wanted to study the feasibility of the Columbia diversion after it was already authorized, on the assumption that even if it wasn’t economically sound, it would be too late to stop it. Their real concern seemed to be lining up the political firepower that would let them succeed. And the plan, as Jensen described it, included so many gifts to so many states that it certainly ought to succeed. It contemplated numerous new irrigation projects in both Oregon and Nevada, some more projects in the upper Colorado Basin, and the stepped-up reclamation program in Washington that would make up for the mysterious “facilities” that might have to be shut down. Even then, Jensen said, “up to 7.5 million acre-feet of [Columbia River] water” would still reach Lake Mead every year. The plan, then, had to be far more expensive and ambitious than anything ever contemplated—more so, by far, than the Pacific Southwest Water Plan, more so even than the Klamath Diversion studied by the Bureau twelve years earlier. That was remarkable enough. What was really remarkable, however, was that the water would be available “at the present price of Columbia River water.”