Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water

by Marc Reisner

His colleagues have also subjected him to threats. “Tim Lee Carter of Kentucky came up to me once after I fought to remove Paintsville Lake from the appropriations bill,” says Edgar. “He was blazing mad. He punched a finger in my chest and said, ‘I know nothing about the Philadelphia shipyard, but I will.’ Another Congressman told me he hopes I am successful in knocking off his project, because then hundreds of his constituents will walk into my district and work for my defeat.” After a while, it is difficult to remain principled in such an atmosphere, let alone be effective. “Congress as an institution is pretty sick,” says Bob Eckhardt, who was a liberal Congressman from Houston until his defeat in 1980. “It has two diseases: special interestitis and parochialism. My opponent made a big issue out of the fact that I was too generous to the Northeast. He said I voted to guarantee New York City’s loan when the money could have been spent in Texas. He boasted about not being a candidate with a national perspective. New Yorkers are just as parochial in their own way. Liz Holtzman of New York feels the question of the Concorde landing at Kennedy Airport is as important as the Equal Rights Amendment. People like Pat Moynihan [the Democratic Senator from New York] oppose western dams but want to waste even more money on a crazily expensive project like Westway. If New York City had gone bankrupt in 1975 it would have been a terribly serious blow to the bond markets of many other...