Morgan Snyder of the Walton Family Foundation once told me of the Colorado: “We have to find a way to share the pain.” The Biden plan avoids reductions based on seniority, which would cause disproportionate pain to junior water rights users and force a conversation reprising the Marc Reisner book “Cadillac Desert” about water for cities versus water for farms.īut then we need to move quickly from the artificial equity of the Biden plan to an allocation scheme that is truly climate-smart. Political corruption - West (U.S.) - History.I’m of the mind that the equal distribution scenario proposed by the Biden administration is a good place to start.

Water resources development - Government policy - West (U.S.) - History. Irrigation - Government policy - West (U.S.) - History. Army Corps of Engineers, in the competition to transform the West.īased on more than a decade of research, Cadillac Desert is a stunning expose and a dramatic, intriguing history of the creation of an Eden-an Eden that may be only a mirage. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. In Cadillac Desert Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruption and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. Introduction A Semidesert with a Desert Heart 1 - Chapter 1 A Country of Illusion 15 - Chapter 2 Red Queen 52 - Chapter 3 First Causes 104 - Chapter 4 An American Nile (I) 120 - Chapter 5 Go-Go Years 145 - Chapter 6 Rivals in Crime 169 - Chapter 7 Dominy 214 - Chapter 8 An American Nile (II) 255 - Chapter 9 Peanut Farmer and the Pork Barrel 306 - Chapter 10 Chinatown 332 - Chapter 11 Those Who Refuse to Learn 379 - Chapter 12 Things Fall Apart 435 - Epilogue A Civilization, if You Can Keep It 477 - Afterword to the Revised Edition 496 - Illustrations follow pages 182 and 374. Includes bibliographical references (pages -564) and index. Viii, 582 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps 22 cm

Cadillac desert book