Cadillac Desert
Authors: Marc Reisner
Tags: #Technology & Engineering, #Environmental, #Water Supply, #History, #United States, #General
Cadillac Desert
MARC REISNER
Penguin Group USA
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE - A Country of Illusion
CHAPTER FOUR - An American Nile (I)
CHAPTER FIVE - The Go-Go Years
CHAPTER EIGHT - An American Nile (II)
CHAPTER NINE - The Peanut Farmer and the Pork Barrel
CHAPTER ELEVEN - Those Who Refuse to Learn ...
CHAPTER TWELVE - Things Fall Apart
Afterword to the Revised Edition
Praise for
Cadillac Desert
“The definitive work on the West’s water crisis”
—
Newsweek
“Intelligent, provocative, and compulsively readable”
—
Chicago Sun-Times
“The scale of this book is as staggering as that of Hoover Dam. Beautifully written and meticulously researched, it spans our century-long effort to moisten the arid West.... Anyone thinking of moving west of the hundredth meridian should read this book before they call their real estate agent.”—
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“A masterful account ... among the best-read, most influential environmental books published by an American since Silent
Spring”
—
San Francisco Examiner
“A highly partisan, wonderfully readable portrayal of the damming, diverting and dirtying of western rivers”
—
Washington Post Book World
“One of the triumphs of the year”—
London Observer
“A revealing, absorbing, often amusing and alarming report on where billions of [taxpayers’] dollars have gone—and where a lot more are going ... [Reisner] has put the story together in trenchant form.”
—
The New York Times Book Review
“Well-written history and analysis, thoroughly researched and abundantly clear in its message”—
Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Pugnacious ... Well-documented ... A compelling, cautionary tale, one that should be required reading for the federal bureaucracy”
—Chicago Tribune
“Sometimes startling, always perceptive ... Written in a style that pops and sparkles like a fresh mountain stream”
—
Smithsonian
“Cadillac Desert
is a book that no American concerned about the nation’s future can afford to miss.... A fascinating, stubbornly logical, expert analysis of the problems the American West has had in trying to capture and control enough water to supply its agriculture and growing population”—
The Grand Rapids Press
“Thoughtful and sprightly ... Reisner’s book deserves to be widely read by political leaders, as well as environmentalists and just about anyone interested in water policies.... After reading Cadillac Desert, it is hard to be indifferent about the importance of water.”
—
Christian Science Monitor
“Fascinating ... Reisner has an uncanny gift for mingling narrative with quotes, historical references, and even suspense.”
—Oakland Tribune
“A magnificent piece of investigative journalism ... Reisner documents how the unholy rivalry between the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers led to the construction of dozens of wasteful, useless dams in the past sixty years.”
—
Palo
Alto Times Tribune
“An incredible story ... This timely and important book should be required reading for all citizens.”—
Publishers Weekly
PENGUIN BOOKS
CADILLAC DESERT
Marc Reisner (1948-2000) was, in Jim Harrison’s words, “in the upper echelon of those defending the environment with conscience, intelligence and energy.” Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Reisner was a 1970 graduate of Earlham College in Indiana. A staff writer for the Natural Resources Defense Council from 1972 to 1979, Reisner received an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship in 1979 to investigate water resources in the West. His book
Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water
(1986) was acclaimed as the “definitive work on the West’s water crisis”
(Newsweek)
and went on to be nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award. Reisner was also author of
Game Wars: The Undercover Pursuit of Wildlife Poachers
(1991) and the posthumously published
A Dangerous Place: California’s Unsettling Fate.
OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert ... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
For Konrad and Else Reisner
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
Penguin Ireland. 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,
Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books india Pvt Ltd., If Community Centre,
Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany,
Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,
Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
First published in the United States of America by
Viking Penguin Inc. 1986
Published in Penguin Books 1987
This revised and updated edition published in Penguin Books 1993
Copyright © Marc Reisner, 1986, 1993
Maps copyright © Viking Penguin Inc., 1986
All rights reserved
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint an excerpt from
“Talking Columbia,” words and music by Woody Guthrie. TRO—© Copyright
1961 and 1963 Ludlow Music, Inc., New York, N.Y. Used by permission.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Reisner, Marc
Cadillac desert
Reprint. Originally published, New York, N.Y., U.S.A.
Viking, 1986.
Bibliography.
Includes index.
1. Irrigation—Government policy—West (U.S.)—History.
2. Water resources development—Government policy—West
(U.S.)—History. 3. Corruption (in politics)—West (U.S.)
—History. I. Title.
[HD1739.A17R45 1987] 333.91’00978 87.7602
eISBN : 978-1-440-66718-3
The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or
via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and
punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions,
and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.
Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
http://us.penguingroup.com
INTRODUCTION
A Semidesert with a Desert Heart
O
ne late November night in 1980 I was flying over the state of Utah on my way back to California. I had an aisle seat, and since I believe that anyone who flies in an airplane and doesn’t spend most of his time looking out the window wastes his money, I walked back to the rear door of the airplane and stood for a long time at the door’s tiny aperture, squinting out at Utah.