Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition

Absolutely fascinating. I lived in California for some 34 years and had no idea as to the history of how Los Angeles got it's water, other than knowing that a good portion came from the Colorado River. This book is thoroughly researched, and deals not just with California but with the water problems and development of the entire U.S. arid West. I had no idea as to the building of the great (and then not so great) dams starting in the late 20's early 1930s, starting with Hoover Dam. Also fascinating treatment as to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the competition with the Corp. of Engineers, and the Congressional pork barrel system that fueled the building of more and more dams and water projects, necessary or not. AND one wonders what will happen as the dams eventually silt up even as the population of cities such as L.A., Phoenix, Tuscon, Denver increase exponentially, as they have and continue to do. Indeed, when I moved to Calif. in 1970 the state's population was about 19 million; today it is about 38 million, DOUBLE that!! And Southern Calif. is basically an arid or at best a semi-arid desert!! This book was written in the late 1980's\early 1990's; one can only surmise how the author would be talking about the extreme Calif. drought now in it's 4th year. Calif gets much of it's water from 'snow-packs', from the Sierra Nevada to the Rockies (which feed the Colorado River). The CA Governor recently stood on bare ground up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and said he should be standing on 5 feet of snow!!! Yet, as the author points out (and I observed living in So. Calif.) the only thing grown in So. Calif. is no longer orange groves, but housing developments (usually in my opinion rather noxious with their same tile roofs, and built 10 ft apart). And they are still going up by the droves on every hill and valley!! The ultimate question is where is the water going to come from to support all this, especially with the effects of climate change, now thought to be at least in part responsible for the current extreme drought??? Anyway, fascinating book (not a short read, for sure) and I learned much as to the development of California and the West. It's all about WATER!!! Harvey (p.s.: I now live back East).

This 1986 tour de force examines water and dams in the mostly arid Western US. Topics addressed in detail include, but are not limited to, the Army Corp of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, California Aqueduct, California Water Wars, Central Arizona Project, Colorado River, Grand Coulee Dam, Glen Canyon Dam, Hoover Dam, John Wesley Powell, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Mono Lake, Ogallala Aquifer, Owens Valley, Teton Dam, and William Mulholland. Underlying the encyclopedic scope of “Cadillac Desert” are two basic themes. First, the settlers lured to the arid West by the railroads and the US Federal Government in the 19th century needed cheap water to support agriculture on their 160 acre parcels of land, and also for their growing cities such as Los Angeles. Cheap hydroelectric power was often a secondary need, essential to pumping water. This need was met by projects of the Bureau of Reclamation and the Corps of Engineers. The projects were generally promoted by local congressmen, who supported each other’s projects. In the long term this endeavor has been subsidized by US taxpayers since return revenues from the projects have generally fallen fall far short of plan. Second, the projects and dams have been an escalating source of controversy. For the most part the projects have not been economically justifiable, especially the irrigation projects, and especially the more recent projects. Also, the dams have created lasting problems -- salination of irrigated soil; silt accumulation behind the dams; environmental devastation to streams, salmon fisheries, and migratory birds; an overstretched US Federal budget, etc. Cheap hydroelectric power has also enabled groundwater pumping which is depleting aquifers. The taxpayer subsidized benefits of cheap water have often gone to large corporate agriculture, not the small farmers for whom the water was intended. By the later part of the 20th century the public sentiment had largely turned away from building ever more dams, and indeed toward removing some of the existing ones. The individual chapters of “Cadillac Desert” are often mesmerizing, instilling a sense of outrage in the civic and history minded reader. The chapter on the 1976 Teton Dam failure is a great example. If the leaders and promoters had thoughtfully considered the economics of the dam, or the geology of the site, the dam would never have been built in the first place. But built it was and fail it did. The spectacularly devastating failure is now used as a case study in engineering courses, providing an example of mistakes at all levels and by all of those involved. While Reisner does seem long winded at times, it is worthwhile staying with “Cadillac Desert” to the end. On one hand, it provides many interrelated perspectives on water and the West. It also ends on a somewhat positive note as the many constituencies involved seem to be converging on a more rational approach to future water usage in the West.

Cadillac Desert is available in a plethora of the National Park book stores and I have intended to read it for about the last twelve years. Finally, a trip to California pushed me over the edge as I tried to figure out the water rights signs along I-5. It is an excellent book that very completely spells out the water situation in the major western states from Colorado west. The stories, though, start to get a bit too long and familiar. Although pretty familiar with this region of the US, I still needed a map most of the time. The locations, distances, and relationship of places is both important and punctuates the story. It is shocking the almost diabolic regression of the Bureau of Reclamation and the Corps of Engineers in the three decades following the mid 1950's. To think that we came to believe that "any water which flows into the ocean is waste" and that it made sense to divert the Columbia River to California is almost inconceivable. The actual projects built in the 60's and 70's are equally unbelievable. Yet they are all there. In the end, I did not finish the final 20% of the book because I pretty much understood the story and couldn't take another story of corrupt western senators, water projects that don't pay off, subsidized farms, and ill-conceived dams. Prior to reading Cadillac Desert I could not understand why we might tear down a dam. Now I can't believe we haven't torn down more. Cadillac Desert will inform you, shock you, and get you a whole lot closer to a clear liquid we take for granted every day.

This book was amazing! So thorough and informative! It's amazing to know how these mega engineering projects work, what is driving them and the political motivations behind them!

I read this because it was mentioned in The Water Knife. Found it excellent and I learned a lot about American history. Highly recommended.

Plus qu’intéressant, édifiant sur les rouages de la société…

excellent livre, bien écrit, avec un prise d'humour, très bien documenté. Retrace deux siècles de civilisation états-unienne dans le Sud-Ouest (Great Desert) dans le contexte plus vaste de la lutte civilisatrice contre la nature (irriguer et urbaniser le désert). Un chapitre du Homo Deus états-unien, avec, en arrière-plan, un fonctionnement presque mafieux des institutions (les deux principaux ingrédients: money and power). Et une prévision plutôt catastrophique: re-désertification.

Who knew that the US has almost 20,000 government built dams, many costing billions of dollars? Who knew California steals all the water it can get from the southwest and midwest? You'll read about how many farmers and ranchers got screwed just because a US department had nothing else to do except build dams. Easy and fun reading!