Customer Reviews

Mining California: An Ecological History

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Some 15 years ago, Marc Reisner came out with a surprisingly well received book, Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition. It described how the American West developed via huge government subsidies for dams and water distribution systems. Isenberg's recent book can be understood as a useful supplement to Reisner. He focuses on California since the Gold Rush days of 1849. Describing how $1 billion in gold was extracted at tremendous expenditure of labour and capital. With an emphasis on the literally downstream cost.

The huge use of water to wash away hills containing gold meant silted runoffs that adversely affected agriculture and wildlife depending on that water. Worse yet was the use of mercury to process the gold ore. The mercury contaminated effluent was discharged with little or no attempt at remediation.

Yes, the benefits of the Gold Rush were far reaching. It built up California's population and the industrial and agricultural base. But there were costs often neglected in standard histories of the time.

The take home message is that downstream was a bad place to be.