On Swamp Peddlers by Jason Vuic

 Placeholder because I did finish it before End of Year!

On Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner

I've been a bit behind on blogging but happy to get back to it. 

Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner was a change of pace from the other books I've been reading. I bought it in Bishop, CA, the biggest town East of the Sierra Nevadas with a population of almost 4,000 (nearing my high school population of 4,500). I visited Bishop to see my sister, who was living there for several months. Photos at the bottom, because it's a really special place. Anyway, there are these special pools in the mountains (video below) that are actually wells which flow into the Owens River. The wells ensure continuous flow of water on the Owens River which benefits water access for the LADWP not only for consumption but for power production. So, you see "Property of Los Angeles Division of Water and Power" signs all over this tiny town. It makes you wonder...

It all began in the 1870s, when LA had a population of nearly 9,000. William Mulholland, a self-taught civil engineer, ended up building one of the greatest aqueducts of all time with water wars, economic devastation, agricultural dynasties, and soil destruction in between. Cadillac Desert started with the LADWP, but was a larger conversation on water development as an industry. The book tells a riveting story, even more exciting because of its verity. What is crazy about this book is the mind-boggling power that came from water ownership and access. Additionally, the downfall of the Bureau of Reclamation from helping the "small" farmer to being a blank check for huge farm operations coincidentally owned by railroads and oil companies. It was a time of immense wealth, monopolies, and huge public spending. It gave me a new perspective on Teddy Roosevelt and was a reminder of how influential the Red Scare was: "Roosevelt was a trust-buster, but only because he feared that unfettered capitalism could breed socialism," (p.107) which is kind of funny to think about today.

The book focuses on the damming of pretty much every great American river; every great salmon run, every source of glacial water, every naturally stunning water body, for the usage of a few. It was an insane time of construction and wealth, but for only a few and with damaging consequences for years to come. 

The LADWP and Bureau of Reclamation manufactured neighborhood suspicion to force entire towns out of a valley for dams. "No one knew when his neighbor would be approached and persuaded to sell out; no one knew when the city would move to condemn; no one knew when the armed guards who patrolled the aqueduct would receive order to shoot to kill," (p.123). It was a disgusting display of government power used for greed and deception. Eventually, there was war. People bombed the aqueduct in desperation. The relic of the water theft by LA for agricultural syndicates lives on in Bishop. The signs of LADWP ownership are everywhere. 

What was even crazier about all this work just to get even more money to these huge syndicates was that we had so much agricultural production that the federal government *paid* them to get rid of the excess. Taxpayers in LA disproportionately shouldered the burden of expense for the construction of an aqueduct which would only indirectly benefit them, if at all, and taxpayers at large nationally paid for unwarranted dams at the expense of a healthy fishing industry, entire towns, tribal nations, and more.

Reisner puts it perfectly: "The astonishing thing...about the whole era was that people just went out and built it, built anything, without knowing exactly how to do it or whether it could even be done," (p.203). 

The book really gave me perspective on the West and water scarcity, which was novel. Thanks to Bishop, CA for showing me the beauty of the Owens River Valley.

Artesian wells heading into the Owens River for LADWP

20 min outside Bishop, CA

The outskirts of Bishop, CA, on a run