Cadillac Desert

Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition, by Marc Reisner, Penguin Books, 1993. 

Summary

The author argues that the United States dammed way too many rivers. Not only did the dam builders harm nature, they also promoted irrigation and power-generation projects that failed a cost-benefit analysis. The early dams, such as Hoover Dam, did provide great benefits for modest costs. But as the years went by, all the best sites had been built on, but the momentum to build new projects continued onward regardless. 

Aquifers

During the nineteenth century, windmills were used to pump water up from aquifers. In the early twentieth century, pumps powered by gasoline or electricity increased the rate at which ground water could be extracted. Using groundwater can be thought of as mining water. The aquifers in the West had accumulated water over thousands of years. But as aquifers were depleted, wells had to be sunk deeper and deeper, and people looked towards diverting river water for irrigation.

Reclamation Act

The Reclamation Act was passed in 1902. Its declared objective was to provide water for irrigation to small farms and at a reasonable cost. The federal government gave farmers no-interest loans. The Reclamation Service, originally a branch of the U.S. Geological Survey, became the Bureau of Reclamation in 1923. The main office of the Bureau of Reclamation was located in Denver. 

Army Corp of Engineers

The Army Corp of Engineers is responsible for inland navigation. It builds levees and dikes for flood control. One purpose of dams is to smooth out floods and droughts with reservoirs. The Army Corp of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation competed for dam projects and were bitter rivals. 

Los Angeles

Harrison Gray Otis, Harry Chandler, and William Mulholland brought water from the Owens River, ostensibly for the urban citizens of Los Angeles. The 1905 bond issue that would pay for the Owens River diversion was promoted as a solution to an imminent water shortage for the residents of Los Angeles. However, during the eight years before the Los Angeles Aqueduct was completed in 1913, no water shortages occurred. Most of the water from the Owens River actually went to agriculture in the San Fernando Valley. The valley had been annexed to Los Angeles, so that it became legal to send L.A. water there. With their insider knowledge, Harrison Gray Otis, Harry Chandler, Henry Huntington, Edward Harriman, and Joseph Santori had bought land in the San Fernando Valley and became wealthy.

Hoover Dam

The Colorado River empties into the Gulf of California. The construction of Hoover Dam in Nevada in 1936 was one of the wonders of the world at the time. It created the Lake Mead reservoir. Henry J. Kaiser and W.A. Bechtel got their start with the construction of Hoover Dam. The dam was built mainly for the benefit of California, while Arizona and Mexico had to fight to get their fair share of the water. Later, Glen Canyon Dam, upstream of Hoover Dam, was built. 

Columbia River

Two major dams were built on the Columbia River in the state of Washington: the Bonneville Dam (1937) and the Grand Coulee Dam (1941). They produced a huge amount of electricity, which was used for making aluminum from bauxite. The aluminum was used for manufacturing airplanes for World War II. The electricity was also used to produce plutonium at Hanford, Washington. So the dams played a major role in the war effort.