Cadillac Desert (108 page)
Authors: Marc Reisner
Tags: #Technology & Engineering, #Environmental, #Water Supply, #History, #United States, #General
The California Aqueduct winds through Lost Hills, turning nearby desert, once considered worthless, into a billion-dollar agricultural bonanza. (©
Peter Menzel, 1986)
The Wind Gap pumps, which send water from the Feather River over the 3,400-foot summit of the Tehachapi Range, consume the electrical output of a nuclear power plant and stand between Los Angeles and disaster.
(© Peter Menzel, 1986)
Mono Lake, an inland sea in eastern California desert country, is slowly dying. Most of the water that used to flow into the lake is now being diverted and piped to Los Angeles, three hundred miles away. As the lake’s depth has decreased, natural calcium format ions called tufa towers have been exposed.
(© Peter Menzel, 1986)
Salt deposits cover ruined farmlands in the San Joaquin Valley. A million acres in California alone may ultimately be affected.
(© Peter Menzel, 1986)
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE - A Country of Illusion
CHAPTER FOUR - An American Nile (I)
CHAPTER FIVE - The Go-Go Years
CHAPTER EIGHT - An American Nile (II)
CHAPTER NINE - The Peanut Farmer and the Pork Barrel
CHAPTER ELEVEN - Those Who Refuse to Learn ...
CHAPTER TWELVE - Things Fall Apart
