Customer Reviews

Drowning the Dream: California's Water Choices at the Millennium

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book addresses some of the most important issues facing California in light of the population growth and new demands for water projected for the decades ahead. Discussions of population and growth control are often difficult, but in Drowning the Dream David Carle brings a new, strongly reasoned approach to the table. In the process, Carle takes on the ultimate questions of California water politics: What kind of state do we want to live in? How much more growth does California really need? Can we keep the California Dream alive? California is naturally limited by its water supply and, therefore, water can be the tool to limit the state's future growth naturally--once we finally abandon the untenable proposal that more water can always be found. Also, Drowning the Dream is more than a policy book; Carle paints a rich picture of California historical natural resources from presettlement days to the present, using a wide range of historical documents and illustrations.

David Carle brings patience, passion and objectivity to a popular but little-understood topic -- the development and future of California's water situation. A wealth of historical tidbits and comments and a no-footnote style accommodate all readers -- hurried, relaxed, studious or pleasure-seeking. The theme -- that the growth pattern of LA was not inevitable, and neither is its future -- is applicable to many situations, large and small, past and future, personal and public. The reader may choose who the heroes and villians are, but the point is that choice must be informed, and this book will help every reader immensely in making their next water bond choice.

David Carle takes a fresh approach to documenting California's development in light of water resources. It's an approach tinted with hope. Basically, Californians still have choices to make. But, I have to say it's tough seeing California's water glass as half full. Especially after reading about the complete crash in the salmon and steelhead runs up and down the state's watersheds. It almost brought me to tears when I read:

"In 1996, only about 1,014 miles of stream remained of the 2,113 miles of Central Valley streams originally used by Chinook salmon." Or, "The spring run of Chinook on the San Joaquin River once numbered up to a half-million fish. Salmon runs ended, completely, on that drainage after Friant Dam."

The author sprinkles a number of "what if" scenarios in the early parts of the book (e.g., what would the Owen's Valley be like today if not for Mulholland, etc.). It's fun to ponder -if not too late to change, it would be useful to ponder. There's a strong longing and sense of nostalgia for the pre sprawl days of Southern California in the book. I came across any number of quotes from old-timers about "the air in Los Angeles being clear" or "you could smell the citrus blossoms for miles." I wonder what the Miwok or any of the other tribes inhabiting California would have said before the ranchers, farmers, and miners arrived. Ah, wouldn't we all long for the days of the Golden State at the peak of her unexploited beauty and natural bounty - I know I do.

One key pivot point for California's future is its farmland. It boils down to a question of whether to grow sub-divisions or almonds. In the last part of the book, Carle really hits his strive and represents the reader with the cold, sober reality of California's future - we are losing farmlands at a constant and rapid rate to housing developments.

The book's merits are in drawing the clear lines between California's past decisions about water development and the current mess that has resulted. Putting aside the unmatched economic and population growth, and whether that's been a net positive for the state and it's inhabitants or not, this author gives equal time to the "hidden costs." The loss of habitat, altered eco-systems, reduced bio-diversity, polluted air and water and extinction of species are all costs that California is paying today.

The question remains how much more growth, if any, can our water resources continue to fuel. Ultimately, California has a choice to make today - stabilize or continue unbounded growth. The book closes with constructive and well thought approaches to making that choice.

I applaud Mr. Carle for his work.

This book is a must read for anyone seriously interested in California; although expensive, it is worth every penny. Mr. Carle has a clear, uncomplicated style of writing and an eye for the cogent quote and the key fact. The result is a lucid, highly readable overview of California water history from days of the Spanish missionaries to the present which shows how early settlement patterns in a very real sense created the present situation.

The only area where this reader would liked to have seen more relates to hard data regarding immigrant and emmigrant flows into the state historically and the assumptions regarding those flows and ethnic-group fertility rates as it relates to population projections for the future. Without understanding those elements, I suspect it won't be possible to surface the policy issues now hidden behind smoke and mirrors at the Federal level which in the end will probably determine what happens in the state.

It would be nice to be able to think that refusing at the state level to increase the water supply would suffice to limit population growth here; regrettably, the Government in Washington is already so involved in our policies that anything we do in isolation would most certainly be overturned.

Carle basically outlines and documents the way that water has been used to spur growth, where supply creates demand instead of -- as is often claimed -- meets "inevitable" demand.*

Anyone who has watched Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix and other sprawling "communities" in dry places will be familiar with Carle's thesis: Real estate developers motivated politicians who hired engineers to "get the job done," i.e., build the infrastructure that would take water from where it was to where the developers owned cheap land. Add water, and voila! Instant fortunes!

Carle's Parts II and III document how Mulholland (the engineer) was instrumental in bringing water from the Eastern Sierra (Owens Valley and Mono Lake) via the Los Angeles Aqueduct (LAA). Although Mulholland did not live to see it go into operation, he was also instrumental in getting a Colorado River Aqueduct (CRA, built by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, MWD) to bring even more water.

If you don't have time for the book, watch Chinatown, since the facts in history are well presented in that movie.

I wish that I had read Carle's book before I finished my dissertation (on MWD), since he filled in some facts on LA that I hadn't known. For example, I had thought that the "we're running out of water, quick go get more" rhetoric began with the CRA, but Mulholland had lied about current water supplies and shortages with the LAA as well. That lie is still happening today, with the propaganda for the desalination plant in San Diego, Mulroy's pipes into rural Utah, and the Peripheral Canal in the Delta. None of these infrastructures are needed -- they are just about further real estate development.

(Although these projects cause environmental damage, what galls me is that they are paid for by current customers,* for the benefit of "new residents," and -- in particular -- for real estate developers. Who sits on your water district board, making decisions "for the good of the community?")

Oh, and California's Department of Water Resources also plays a role -- projecting future "needs" from population and then building infrastructure to supply the "need." Surprise surprise, when the cheap water is there, projected demand shows up!

Part I of the book, btw, describes a California of the past, where Nature was abundant and lush, when grizzly bears roamed in Los Angeles. The grizzly bear that appears on our state flag is now extinct (the irony!), and that's Carle's main point -- we have lost a lot in "our" quest for growth.

Perhaps the most appealing narrative technique that Carle uses is an "alternative universe" view of what could have been if the major water projects had not brought more water -- and sprawl and people -- to dry places. The Los Angeles he describes is indeed appealing -- with more green spaces, less concrete, cleaner air and more "community." Today, we have a city ready-made for Bladerunner. We could have had this [1904]:

Los Angeles is one of the prettiest cities I have seen... every house is surrounded by large grounds that are planted with various trees... The city is a bustling business town, over 100,000 people, fine blocks, elegant hotels, and real estate agents thick enough to walk on.

And those agents did their job too well, selling everything to anyone, and when they ran out of good land to sell, bringing water from elsewhere to make bad lands into subdivisions.**

Part IV describes how Northern California has been adversely impacted by water exports and how the Central Valley was turned from "useless" wetlands swamps into agricultural land. Part V concludes with some visions of the future, but this quotation, in response to Governor Edmund G. Brown's 1962 celebration of "California First" (taking first place as most populous state), tells us what that should be:

...instead of dancing in the streets, we should... call the people of California to the schools, churches, city halls and other places of public assemblage, there to pray for the vision and the guidance to make California the finest state in the Union as well as the largest.
--- Former Governor (and US Chief Justice) Earl Warren

Sounds like a good idea, one that we should have tried to carry out in the past 50 years.

BOTTOM LINE: I give this book FIVE STARS for, despite occasional over-the-top tree hugging, its clear thesis and exposition on the perils of relentless growth. California is a wonderful place, but we've done more harm than good in our mismanagement of its resources. Let's get back to quality, not quantity; sustainability, not endless growth.
--------------------------------------------
* Because water is sold at "postage stamp prices" people pay the same for it, no matter where they are in the system. Thus, the cost of serving new customers is spread among all customers.
** I sold real estate in Orange Country for one summer; my dad still works down there. There are few oranges in Orange County these days.

This is as interesting historically as it is politically -- how we got ourselves into this mess is at least as interesting, err, dumbfounding, as the potential ways out. This is as much a history of California as it is a history of California's water problem and being relatively new (10 years) to the state, I learned a great deal. I didn't realize, for instance, how the byproducts of the 49ers (quicksilver/mercury) are still flowing down out of the mountains and into the bay even today after heavy rains. Whodathunkit.

The look at the political machinery that got us here was fascinating, though I will have to say the policy presciptions for getting us out seemed pretty linear -- I was expecting some more imaginative thinking from such an authority on the subject as Carle, but then again I didn't really buy the book to have the answers spoon-fed to me. If the answer was simple, you know, Gray Davis would be jumping all over this one, and he ain't.

It's a pretty easy read -- a fun read, actually -- and the maps were indeed helpful, in fact I'd like to see even more maps in future books like this, especially of the rivers in the north that feed our agriculture machine. The photos were also helpful. (Ed note: give reviewer extra points for acknowledging he likes books with photos.)

Final thought: no mention of California's huge bottled water habit. A bit off topic, but funny it wasn't in the book.

This is an apparent Sierra Club republication of the author's book Drowning the Dream: California's Water Choices at the Millenium published in 2000. I found the book to be an adolescent-like approach to California's water issues - if we only rolled back history and never built the Los Angeles Aqueduct and everyone still lived an idyllic rural existence on farms the physical environment would never have been ruined by the water grabs of arid Southern California, or so the author tells us. If such was the case most of us would still be living with premature death, disease, and an existence of daily grueling labor and the physical environment would be ruined by everyone having need of at least 160-acres for farming - witness China. What apparently biologist author David Carle can't grasp - because it is beyond his professional competence - is that it wasn't necessarily large industrial water projects that ruined the pristine California environment, but the choice to socialize water and thus make it available at such a low price that about 80% of water consumed by cities is exploited for the non-essentials of living - lawns, gardens, and swimming pools. Moreover, Carle never factors into his assessment that there has been a trade off from natural flora and fauna to man-made gardens in the cities surrounding everyone's home. His solution to just say no to new water and to politically blockade the use of existing water supplies by environmental lawsuits to control population is wrong headed, naive, and bound to failure. Such policies don't stand much of a chance of success if it results in telling urban homeowners that they can't have rose gardens or lawns. A better solution would have been to privatize the water system in the first place in which case urban dwellers wouldn't have been as prone to exploit water because it would have been too costly to do so. However, a kudo to the author for assembling a good bibliography which resulted in this reviewer assigning two stars to the book.