Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner is a long book about the history of water construction projects in the western United States. The book is well written and tells fascinating stories about the building of dams and aqueducts. Unfortunately, because of its length, I think many readers will not get all the way through it, but it is worth it.
The book, originally published in 1986 with a revised version appearing in 1993, is written from an environmental point of view. At one time, Reisner worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council. However, Floyd Dominy, the longtime head of the Bureau of Reclamation, granted the author extensive access, resulting in a long chapter devoted to his career. Also, the book is nonpartisan; Democratic politicians are skewered for their support of non-economically justifiable water projects. The Democrats did control the House of Representatives for most of the period the book covers, and opposing water projects, the author demonstrates, could result in ostracization in Congress.
Whether one is a confirmed environmentalist or not, the book is an eye-opener for all who read it. The amount of research the author did is stupendous. Disasters, such as the collapse of the Teton Dam in Idaho, are described in detail, as well as the remaking of California by providing enormous amounts of heavily subsidized water for agriculture in the Central Valley. Projects along the Colorado River are also discussed in detail, including both the Hoover and Glen Canyon dams.
There is, though, one omission in the book. The author obtained extensive information about the Bureau of Reclamation, but much less about the Army Corps of Engineers, which was also heavily involved in water projects. There is one chapter about the rivalry of the two agencies, with each trying to get the right to build the same projects, but there is much less about the personalities and motivations of those who worked at the Army Corps of Engineers.
All the easily justifiable and many not justifiable water projects have been built. There are few remaining good sites for major projects; in fact, the Glen Canyon Dam, which creates Lake Powell, is the last major dam built in the U.S. Construction on it started in 1956 and it was officially opened in 1966. It reached its targeted fill in 1980.
The current problem is, of course, climate change, which has become a much more pressing issue since the book was written. One wonders what will happen to agriculture if there is less water for the Central Valley and farmers are forced to change the crops they grow. There could be a wholesale change where crops are grown and animals are raised, with attendant economic effects. The discussion in the book about California and the Colorado River made this reader think about these issues, which are briefly discussed in a postscript to the book written and added to the book by Mr. Reisner’s widow, Lawrie Mott, in 2017.
Finally, as a native San Franciscan, I cannot resist repeating a story in the book about Governor Pat Brown (Jerry Brown’s father). Whatever one thinks of the Pat Brown, the major projects he pushed through (including the California Water Project and the California Master Plan for Higher Education), and his questionable methods and tactics (discussed in the book), he was obviously effective. In an interview for the University of California Bancroft Library Oral History Program, Brown talked about the California Water Project. The book recounts:
...Brown suggested another motive that had made him, a northern Californian by birth, want so badly to build a project which would send a lot of northern California’s water southward: “Some of my advisers came to me and said, ‘Now governor, don’t bring the water to the people, let the people go to the water. That’s a desert down there. Ecologically, it can’t sustain the number of people that will come if you bring the water project in there.’
“I weighed this very, very thoughtfully before I started going all out for the water project. Some of my advisers said to me, ‘Yes, but people are going to come to southern California anyway.’ Somebody said, ‘Well send them up to northern California.” I knew I wouldn’t be governor forever. I didn’t think I’d ever come down to southern California and I said to myself, ‘I don’t want all these people to go to northern California.’”
While dated, this book is
essential reading for those interested in the past and future economic and
environmental challenges of water policy or for those interested in the history
and politics of water projects in the western United States.
