Cadillac Desert (98 page)

Etter, Alfred G. “How Reclamation Can Kill the West,”
Defenders of Wildlife News,
April/May/June 1966.

Frantz, Joe B.
Floyd E. Dominy Oral History.
Lyndon Baines Johnson Library Oral History Program, University of Texas, Austin, November 14, 1968.

Holum, Kenneth. Blue envelope memorandum to Commissioner of Reclamation, “Briefing Session—House Interior Committee—January 28,” January 28, 1965.

Nelson, H. T. Blue envelope memorandum to Commissioner, Bureau of Reclamation, “Interest of the Idaho Water Resources Board in Middle Snake River Development Program,” October 20, 1967.

Nelson, Harold. Blue envelope memorandum to Commissioner, Bureau of Reclamation, “Relationships with the Corps of Engineers—Umatilla River Basin,” April 24, 1962.

Peterson, Ottis. Memorandum to Mr. Dominy, March 30, 1967.

—. Blue envelope letter to George N. Pierce, District Manager, Bureau of Reclamation, Juneau, Alaska, June 1, 1965.

Pettingill, Olin. “Convention Country,”
Audubon,
1966.

“Reclamation Boss Chides Utah Chief,”
Arizona Daily Star,
October 20, 1962.

Regional Directors, Bureau of Reclamation, Boise and Denver. Blue envelope letter to Commissioner, “Meeting with the Governor of the State of Wyoming,” April 3, 1962.

Stamm, Gilbert. Blue envelope letter to Floyd Dominy, Director of Irrigation, Bureau of Reclamation, April 26, 1954.

Stuart, Russell. Letter to Stewart Udall, February 18, 1966.

Udall, Stewart. Personal memorandum to Floyd Dominy, Commissioner of Reclamation, February 26, 1966.

“Udall Effects Troubled Truce in Two-Year Carr-Dominy Feud,”
Pueblo
(Colo.) Chieftain, February 25, 1963.

“Warning to Interior,”
Pueblo
(Colo.)
Chieftain,
September 3, 1962.

West, Arleigh. Blue envelope memorandum to Commissioner, Bureau of Reclamation. “Excess Lands—Imperial Irrigation District—Boulder Canyon Project, California” (undated).

—. Blue envelope memorandum to Commissioner Dominy. “CONFIDENTIAL: Excess land survey in areas served by Metropolitan Water District, Southern California,” December 30, 1964.

CHAPTER NINE: The Peanut Farmer and the Pork Barrel

This chapter is based mainly on interviews and newspaper reporting. Sources who should be mentioned are Robert Smythe, Richard Ayres, J. Gustave Speth, Jane Yarn, Claude Terry, James Flannery, Peter Carlson, David Conrad, Jim Free, Guy Martin, John Leshy, Laurence Rockefeller, Tom Barlow, David Weiman, Ronald Robie, Congressman Robert Edgar, Brent Blackwelder, former Congressman Robert Eckhardt, Congressman Tom Bevill, John Lawrence, Congressman John Myers, Ruth Fleischer, William Dubois, Daniel Beard, and Steven Lanich.

Congressman Jim Wright’s
The Coming Water Famine
makes for interesting reading if one wishes to understand how thoroughly a basically self-interested politician can delude himself into thinking he is serving the commonweal.

The Tellico story is drawn partly from Fred Powledge’s
Water.
A good critical appraisal of the TVA’s record in Appalachia is William Chandler’s
The Myth of TVA.

BOOKS

Chandler, William U.
The Myth of TVA.
Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1984. Powledge, Fred. Water. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982. Reid, T. R.
Congressional Odyssey.
San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1980. Wright, Jim.
The Coming Water Famine.
New York: Coward-McCann, 1966.

ARTICLES AND REPORTS

“Accord Reached in Westlands Pact.”
Sacramento Bee,
1979.

American Rivers,
December 1977 (entire issue).

“Andrus, Governors Weigh Drought.”
Denver Post,
February 21, 1977.

“Andrus Sees No Major Shifts under Successor.”
New York Times,
November 18, 1980.

“Andrus’s Popularity Washes Away in West.”
New York Times,
February 20, 1978.

“Belly Up to the Trough, Boys!”
New Republic,
October 14, 1978.

Broder, David S. “A Most Puzzling Maneuver.”
Washington Post,
March 16, 1977.

“California Farmers’ Clout Preserves Federal Water Subsidy.”
Washington Post,
August 19, 1979.

Carter, President Jimmy. “To the Congress of the United States,” February 21, 1977.

—. “To the Congress of the United States,” June 6, 1978.

“Carter in Full Retreat in ‘War on West.’ ”
Washington Post.
January 1978.

“Carter Opts to Sidestep Fight on 160-Acre Limit.”
Sacramento Bee,
June 22, 1979.

“Carter Water Policy Hurt.”
Washington Post,
March 31, 1978.

“Carter Will Ask Hill to Halt Aid for 18 Major Water Projects.”
Los Angeles
Times, April 18, 1977.

“Carter Won’t Seek Cut in Big Projects.”
New York Times,
January 14, 1978.

“Carter Yields on Water Projects.”
Philadelphia Inquirer,
January 15, 1978.

“Carter’s Water Policy: Furor in an Election Year.”
Washington Post,
June 11, 1980.

“CEQ Releases Summary of Water Resource Project Deletions.” Council on Environmental Quality, February 23, 1977.

“Congress’ Going Away Gifts.”
Washington Post,
December 10, 1980.

“Congress Makes Waves over Carter’s Water Policy.”
National Journal,
July 1, 1978.

“Devastating Blow Dealt Water Projects Pork Barrel.”
Science,
October 27, 1978.

“Energy and Public Works Appropriations Bill.”
Congressional Record,
October 5, 1978.

“Energy and Water Development Appropriations for 1981.” Hearings, House Appropriations Committee, 1981.

“Environmentalists Slam Carter.”
Rocky Mountain News,
March 31, 1978.

“Executive Summary: Water Resources Option Paper.” Carter Domestic Policy Staff (internal document, undated).

Gardner, Don. “The Trinity River: Water and Politics.”
Texas Observer,
May 20, 1977.

“Governors Assured by Andrus on Water.”
New York Times,
June 24, 1979.

“Hart, Haskell Demand Data on Water Projects.”
Denver Post,
1977.

“House Sustains Veto of Public Works Bill.”
Wall Street Journal,
October 6, 1978.

“Issue Paper: Federal Water Resources Policy.” Carter Domestic Policy Staff (internal document), January 28, 1977.

Lamm, Richard D., and Scott M. Matheson. “Deficits: A Noose.” New York
Times
(undated).

“Louisiana Girding to Save Waterway from the ‘Hit List.’
Washington Post,
March 28, 1977.

“Plan to Share Water Project Costs Is Gaining in West Under Reagan.”
New York Times,
September 12, 1982.

“President Is Warned by House Democrats.”
New York Times,
May 23, 1977.

“Roll Out the Barrels, We’ll Have a Barrel of Funds, Folks Say.”
Wall Street Journal
(undated).

“Senate Vote Defies Carter.”
Washington Post,
March 11, 1977.

“Senators, White House Wrangle over Powers.”
Washington Post,
March 1977.

“A Threat to Block Valley Water Pact.”
San Francisco Chronicle,
October 4, 1979.

“Top Western State Officials Blast Water Project Cuts.”
The Missoulian,
February 21, 1977.

“Turning Off the Water.”
Newsweek,
April 4, 1977.

U.S. Department of the Interior, Water Projects Review. “Auburn-Folsom-South Project, California,” April 1977.

“Water Policy: Battle over Benefits.”
Congressional Quarterly,
March 4, 1978.

“Water Policy Reforms Going down the Drain?” Environmental Policy Center,
Resource Report,
May 1978.

“Water Project Budget Remains Virtually Untouched.” American Rivers Conservation Council, March 1980.

“Water Projects Dispute: Carter and Congress Near a Showdown.”
Science,
June 17, 1977.

“Watt Studies Sharing of Costs for Western Water Projects.”
New York Times,
June 19, 1983.

“Watt Wading into Water Policy.”
Washington Post,
April 18, 1981.

“Watt Would Lift Irrigation Limit, Reduce Subsidy.”
Washington Post,
December 10, 1981.

“Westlands Hearings Not Likely to Bring Immediate Decisions.”
San Francisco Examiner,
March 20, 1980.

LETTERS, MEMORANDA, MISCELLANEOUS

Dugan, Patrick. Blue envelope letter to Floyd Dominy, Commissioner of Reclamation, “Folsom South Unit,” November 23, 1962.

Gordon, Kermit. Memorandum for the President, “Policies for Handling Navigation Projects,” March 8, 1965.

Green, John A., Environmental Protection Agency. Letter to David Crandall, Regional Director, Bureau of Reclamation, Salt Lake City, November 28, 1976.

Kirwan, Michael, et al. Letter to the President, April 26, 1966.

Udall, Morris, et al. Letter to the Honorable Jimmy Carter, February 14, 1977.

Watson, Marvin. Memorandum to the President, March 24, 1965.

Wright, Jim. Letter to the President, April 7, 1966.

CHAPTER TEN: Chinatown

All the quotations from former Governor Pat Brown are in
California Water
Issues,
1950—1966,
a bound volume of interviews conducted by Malca Chall of the University of California’s Bancroft Library Oral History Program. The Bancroft Library has also conducted interviews with William Warne, Ralph Brody, and some of the other important participants in California’s recent water-development history that are well worth reading.

Lynn Ludlow of the
San Francisco Examiner
has done an excellent job of chronicling abuses of the Reclamation Act in California. So has George Baker of the
Sacramento Bee,
whose coverage of the Peripheral Canal wars was also the best in the state.

Patrick Porgans of Red Tape Abatement, Inc., a private research and consulting firm, provided considerable assistance in understanding the financial aspects of the State Water Project. E. Philip LeVeen and Rob Stavens of Public Interest Economics have also published much useful material, as has Dorothy Green of WATER and the Contra Costa County Water Agency. Anyone trying to fully understand the project should also consult the annual reports of the Department of Water Resources.

Carey McWilliams’s
California: The Great Exception
is highly recommended for its portrayal of how agribusiness, banking, food processing, the university extension system, cheap imported labor, and publicly subsidized water have created a huge economic juggernaut in the state. It may be the best general book written about California. The best essayist rooting around where California culture and politics meet, in my opinion, is not Joan Didion, but her husband, John Gregory Dunne. His “Eureka! A Celebration of California” is especially fine, though Didion’s more famous essay, “Holy Water,” is not to be missed.

A sense of the concentration of agricultural wealth in California can be gained from “Getting Bigger,” by the California Institute for Rural Studies, which profiles the 211 largest farming companies in the state (the smallest of the 211 is a 5,000—acre operation). The study, a superb piece of research, reveals a good deal about interlocking directorates, holding companies, vertical integration in the food market, parent companies, hidden partnerships, market penetration, and so on. Most of the information on the big growers benefiting from the State Water Project comes from CIRS.

It is almost impossible to understand water and California history without consulting the
California Water Atlas,
a huge (in dimension), beautifully produced work that really does deserve to be called unique. To anyone with a keen interest in the subject, the LANDSAT photos and graphs (depicting river flows, rainfall records, floods, droughts, irrigation deliveries, pumping energy consumed, etc.) will be fascinating. The text is persistently neutral when discussing the political wars.

For thirty or forty years, a Berkeley professor named Paul Taylor kept up a largely futile but unflagging effort to reform the enforcement of the Reclamation Act (rather than “reform” the Act). His essays on the subject are meticulous and readable, especially when they delve into the social effects of agricultural giantism. Much useful information on the acreage limitation, and violations thereof, has also been published by National Land for People; though it is portrayed by the growers as a “radical” organization, its only real goal is enforcement of one of the most poorly enforced laws in the nation.

Important interviews for this chapter:
Ronald Robie, Dorothy Green, Lorelle Long, Tom Graff, George Ballis, Kendall Manock, Edmund G. Brown, Sr., Gerald Meral, Ellen Stern Harris, Lawrence Swenson, Patrick Porgans, E. Philip LeVeen, Myron Holburt, Jack Burby, Willoughby Houk, Paul Taylor, David Weiman, H. P. Dugan, Robert Pafford, Michael Catino, David Shuster, Jim Cook, Kenneth Turner, Richard Wilson, Philip Bowles, David Kennedy, James Flannery, John Bryson, John Leshy, Ben Yellen.