Rating: 
Summary: Beware the pork!
Review: Cadillac Desert is an excellent resource about water in the Western U.S. and the political wrangling that took place to control it. This book describes the backroom deals, the crimes & criminals, and the pork barrel water projects associated with control of water in the West. After reading this book I became more aware (and skeptical) of the politics of water. The book is very readable, educational, and entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: stunning
Review: While ostensibly about the history and future unsustainability of the West's water policies, the political intrigue could likely apply to any number of other resources. A devastating condemnation of politics and bureaucracy, and a revealing expose of business-as-usual in America. Systematic and devastatingly argued. I felt angry, bitter, cynical, and powerless after reading this book - one of the most eye-opening I have ever read. Even if you do not agree with Reisner's premise, this is a must-read book. Shocking and ultimately heart-breaking.
Rating:
Summary: Broad and deep
Review: This book covers all of the following topics: settlement of the West, the growth of Los Angeles, Bureau of Reclamation, Army Corps of Engineers, irrigation, salinity, groundwater overdraft, Ogallala Aquifer, desalinization, dams, dam building, hydroelectric power, interstate conflict (Arizona vs California), international conflict (Mexico vs the United States), pork barrel politics, fish, waterfowl, subsidized water for farmers, selective enforcement of the law, Colorado River, crop selection, federal water projects, state water projects, silt, water rights, displacement of local residents, evaporation, and irrigated water for corporate farms. This book was educational.
Rating: 
Summary: Pork Barrels vs. Nature
Review: Before beginning this book, note that it is not simply a list of environmental complaints. Marc Reisner has a conservationist background, but here he is acting as a reporter and not an essayist. Hence this book if a political history of water projects in the American west, with little environmentalism to be found, except at a very high level. And what we have is the story of some truly bizarre politics. Most of the west can naturally support very few people, so the US government has forced civilization upon it through irrigation schemes that are mostly made up of more and more dams built to bigger and bigger proportions. How else would you explain the presence of major cities like Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Los Angeles in the middle of deserts, or lush green farmlands in areas that had been nothing but sand for millennia? The Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation led the way, starting with a modest program of increasing water supplies to small farmers who were bravely pioneering the Wild West. But in an era of huge pork barrel politics and a paranoid desire to conquer nature, these plans spiraled into megalomania. The Corps and Bureau competed with each other to build the biggest projects, and schemes were designed to keep engineers working and to keep money flowing to the pockets of campaign contributors. Thus projects were built that were ridiculous wastes of money (in some cases, delivering 10 cents of benefit for every taxpayer dollar spent), increased environmental devastation with no benefits, and were not even wanted by the people they were supposed to benefit. Meanwhile the pork barrel politics led to bizarre ideologies, with conservatives demanding subsidies paid by taxpayers to cover the losses of uneconomical schemes (the worst form of Socialism), and Democrats begging for projects that benefited a few wealthy corporate farmers while destroying the livelihoods of vast numbers of regular folks. In the greatest irony of all, Westerners beg the federal government to continue propping up a civilization that has little chance to stand on its own, while continually spouting Western rhetoric about distrusting the Feds back east. Reisner delivers a compelling political history of these potentially disastrous trends, which will result in little water conservation in the long run, and even encourage more wasteful use. The only problem is that Reisner is a rather arrogant writer, sometimes falling on the wrong side of the fine line between sarcastic-funny and sarcastic-condescending. This book also drifts into repetitive examples of bad water schemes that merely repeat the main points that were laid down long before. But despite those minor problems, this book drives home the point that pork barrel politics is making a natural deficit of water into a potential human catastrophe that is bound to happen sooner or later.
Rating:
Summary: How the West was done (in).
Review: This must-read book cuts across political, social, and economic lines in showing how the American West was sold out, chopped up, and done in by men of low moral tone, absolute lack of scruple, obsessive aim, and not least, no spine at all. Harsh words, perhaps, but read on. You will read the story of Floyd Dominy, director of the Bureau of Reclamation, who was a man of immense sexual appetites, little capacity for discipline, and an enormous ambition for power, regardless of expense to one and all, except himself. The tales of how he captivated, and literally owned certain key congressmen are enough to make one retch. Left to his own devices, Dominy would have dammed up the Grand Canyon, Dinosaur Monument, the canyons in Canyonlands and Arches National parks, and anything else where concrete could be poured and contractors kept happy. Who paid for all this TVA-West stuff? You and I are STILL paying for it, not in taxes, but in loss of scenic grandeur that was your birthright until Dominy and his crooked pals got hold of it. Probably the only good thing James Watt did was fire this malefactor of governmental power. Read about William Mulholland and how he jammed the water plans for Los Angeles down others' throats, and how he passed buck when things failed. Again, the corruption and intrigue are unbelievable and disgusting. Read how all these grandiose schemes will fail, and are failing. Lack of foresight, or active refusal to accept inevitable limitations, is the reason. As with all other societies based on irrigation and water hoarding, the house of cards created at the whim of private capital's shortsightedness will eventually fall. When the next xerothermic climate period hits, as it did in 1240 A.D., and when Nebraska becomes a desert and Phoenix and Los Angeles wither, this book will serve as a reminder to both those evacuating the West, and those being forced to accept these refugees, that a sane water policy cannot be based on economic gain and venial whims of politicians and unscrupulous developers. Will anyone listen then? Stay tuned.
Rating:
Summary: Essential History
Review: I am somewhat ashamed to have read this book only recently. I should have read this one years ago. Well, better late than never, and I am pleased to report that it deserves its enduring reputation. ...But let me assume that I am writing this "review" for an audience that is neither familiar with Reisner's book nor aware of the role water development has played in every aspect of the history of the American West, particularly of California. Briefly, the history of water development contains the whole story of the West, from start to present. Early modern irrigation worked miracles and opened to the plow land previously unavailable for agriculture -- land that now feeds the nation and much of the world. If it were not for these early, massive hydro-projects, not one of the great cities of the West would be even conceivable, millions upon millions of people would and could never have considered settling the western half of the continent. Of course, there was a massive cost accompanying all of these benefits, measurable in human as well as environmental terms, but in those days the cost-benefit analysis was easy. Building upon early irrigation successes, two government agencies -- the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers, may they both live forever in infamy -- garnered unto themselves massive power and independence, which they used to keep on building dam after dam after dam. The problem was not so much (at the time the dams were built) that the environmental costs were higher with every dam, until there now remains no wild river beyond the hundredth meridian of any significance whatsoever, precious little habitat for migratory birds, mass extinctions, etc., etc., tragically etc.; the real problem (at the time the dams were built) was that the new dams brought no benefits whatsoever to stack up against their costs. Each new dam represented gratuitous environmental catastrophe, effected simply because water projects became the currency of pork barrel Congressional politics. And that's not the worst of it. Except for the Egyptian (the Nile River being a very special case), every civilization founded upon irrigation has always ended -- abruptly -- almost certainly due to the sudden and permanent despoliation of irrigated agricultural soil through concentration of salts, which is the inevitable result of irrigation. No previous irrigation civilization has ever worked on such a grand scale, or with soil already so alkaline, as ours. Death by salinity is happening with alarming rapidity in the American West even now. The end of agriculture as we know it in the West is coming, and coming soon; all the experts know it; nothing is being done. Reisner doesn't suggest much in the way of solutions. But as history -- explaining patterns of human settlement, the effects of that settlement on the region's geography, the patterns of flow and accumulation of wealth in the West, and what may be the greatest crisis our whole nation is facing and ignoring today -- Cadillac Desert can't be beat.
Rating:
Summary: Captivating historical account...this book stands out
Review: Mr. Reisner presents an intriguing history of water use in the Western US. It is an excellent read for an historical account, although Mr. Reisner editorializes a wee bit too much to get 5 stars out of me. Still, it is a must for anyone who wants to understand a huge component of the geopolitical background of our arid western states. If you are remotely interested in this topic, buy the book. You won't be sorry.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most illuminating books I have read in a while
Review: "Cadillac Desert" is one of those books that causes a person to seriously question "the system" (no matter your ideological affiliation). The book exposes the blantant contradictions and hypocrisy that have permeated the history of the West (which history is the history of water and it being reigned in). Take my own situation for example: Over the last couple of weeks I found myself agreeing page after page with the authors' points of view. During those same weeks when I was reading the book and agreeing with the author, I was swimming in, showering in, watering my lawn with, and drinking the very water the author condemned. As if that wasn't bad enough I reflected on my former years when I worked every summer on the family farm which was sustained by CAP and reclamation water. Ouch!!!
My reading this book can basically be translated into the author, Marc Reisner, slapping me in the face and chewing me out and me just sitting there unable to defend myself. The book sets forth examples that are virtually impossible to argue against. However, one point Mr. Reisner failed to mention is the importance agriculture plays in our national security and our ability as a nation to sustain ourselves. This point, though, hardly justifies the irrational decisions made buy both the Bureau of Reclamation and the Corps of Engineers. I mention it here as a kind a weak punch from the canvas in an attempt to justify my existence after being so brutally beaten down by facts and the exposure of the blatant hypocrisy perpetuated by so-called "ideological purists" (which come from both sides of the aisle). The author said it best by stating that when it comes to water there are no Republicans and Democrats, and there are no liberals or conservatives.
Rating:
Summary: A book with appeal to the Right and to environmentalists!
Review: "Cadillac Desert" was a poignant, well-researched, thoughtful book that discards traditional "right/left" arguments to demonstrate how complicated the water resource issue truly is. The environmental movement will certainly approve of his damning appraisal of the needless and reckless damming of the West (no pun intended), while conservatives will agree with his assessment that the damns were built by New Deal Democrats whose bureaucratic maneuverings would be the envy of any Soviet planner. Conservatives will also be livid at how much of a tax burden we're bearing over these silly boondoggles. Dams in the west, by and large, were constructed to irrigate wastelands to grow crops that our tax dollars are being spent to subsidize farmers in the arable South, Midwest, and Northeast US to NOT grow! Farmers in the western US pay *peanuts* for their water. So who did/does pay for it? That's correct. You and I! Reisner also makes the connection between cattle ranching and our disappearing water resources. Taking long showers and leaving the tap on while brushing teeth is NOT the root of the water problem in the west. The true culprits are the big corporate cattle ranches, along with crops like alfalfa and sorghum that are used to feed livestock. Politicians are going to have to make some very tough choices, and Americans are going to need to reevaluate their use of cow products if we want to ensure an abundant and cheap supply of fresh water in the future.
Rating:
Summary: The continuing fallout of water wars and dam building
Review: This is the definitive history of water in the American West. A must read for any Californian, this tale of how America brought civilization to the desert is a fascinating look at political power, gargantuan engineering projects, and hubris. The reality is that the 9 million residents of Los Angeles County need to get water from somewhere. Cadillac Desert tells you how it gets there and what price is still being paid.
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