Cadillac Desert: the American West and Its Disappering Water by Marc Reisner

MARC REISNER , CADILLAC DESERT

Marc Reisner 's Cadillac Desert is an extensive , well-detailed history of how Americans made the formerly inhospitable American West habitable by harnessing water , its most valuable and scarce resource . Written with passion and indignation , this work assails the frenzy of dam-building in the twentieth century as an ultimately dangerous folly driven by greed , hubris , and misguided political leadership

The book focuses mainly on the Bureau of Reclamation 's effect on the West and traces that agency 's construction of numerous dams that provided the water and electricity

needed to allow both the population and the economy to thrive . In addition , it takes a sharply critical view of the Bureau 's questionable decision-making , political infighting and wasteful management . Ironically , says Reisner , the Bureau 's history of massive dam projects has placed the West 's environment in even greater peril , and the odds that we can sustain it would have to be regarded as low . Only one desert civilization . has survived uninterrupted into modern times (3 . The dams themselves are weakening due to silt buildup , the once-rich soil which the dams helped irrigate is now becoming dangerously salinized , and the West 's massive population growth in the twentieth century has created an insatiable need for water that the region 's rivers may not be able to provide indefinitely

Reisner begins with a brief history of efforts to settle the West which were thwarted mainly by the region 's aridity . Next , an important chapter documents John Wesley Powell 's exploration of the then-wild Colorado River and his little-heeded assertion that large-scale Western settlement and agriculture would be unwise without strict , careful government control of its meager water supply (Politicians and settlers alike ignored Powell 's admonitions , which Reisner deems a major historical blunder that has already started to haunt the overdeveloped region

Subsequent chapters examine the political machinations , unbridled greed of politicians and residents alike , and the Bureau 's sometimes-reckless competition with the Corps of Engineers to build dams as quickly as possible , regardless of their necessity or ecological effects . He devotes an extensive chapter to Los Angeles ' water wars ' of the early twentieth century (explained in more detail below , juxtaposing it against the chapter on Powell to show what the wise approach would 've been and what Americans did instead

Reisner moves on to explore the Bureau of Reclamation 's creation under the conservation-minded Theodore Roosevelt (who backed development interests while also creating national parks ) and its rise during the New Deal , when Franklin Roosevelt dramatically expanded its dam-building activities in to stimulate the Western economy and generate revenues with the electricity that cash register dams ' generated Reisner does not spare Roosevelt , condemning this aspect of the New Deal as a nature-wrecking , money-eating monster that our leaders lacked the courage or ability to stop (175 . When the environmentally-minded Jimmy Carter tried to halt wasteful dam construction , politicians from both major parties rose against him , aided by wrathful Western business interests dependent on cheap , plentiful water and power...