Cadillac Desert

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For the documentary: see Cadillac Desert (film) (1997).

Cadillac Desert, by Marc Reisner, is a 1986 book (ISBN 0-14-017824-4) about land development and water policy in the western United States. Subtitled The American West and its Disappearing Water, it gives the history of the Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and their struggle to remake the American West. The book's main conclusion is that development-driven policies, formed when settling the West was the country's main concern, are having serious long-term negative effects on the environment and water quantity. The book was revised and updated in 1993.

A four-part television documentary Archive copy at the Internet Archive based on the revised book was produced by KTEH-TV, the PBS affiliate in San Jose, California, in 1996. The parts are entitled Mulholland’s Dream, An American Nile, The Mercy of Nature, and The Last Oasis.

[edit] Topics discussed

• John Wesley Powell
• Powell Geographic Expedition of 1869
• Rain follows the plow
• William Mulholland
• Owens Valley
• California Water Wars
• NAWAPA
• Hoover Dam
• Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

[edit] See also

• Cadillac Desert, a documentary based partly on this book.

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