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The Politics of Western Water: The Congressional Career of Wayne Aspinall

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Sturgeon concisely details Wayne Aspinall's election to Congress, his slow rise through the seniority system to be finally Chairman of the House Interior Committee, a tremdndously powerful position that Aspinall exercised with the subtlity of a sledge hammer. Knowing that water is scarce in the West, that the Colorado River originates in Western Colorado (his District), and that seven states continually fight over rights to the water, his priority was to safeguard water supplies in his District from all the other claimants. Practically everything he worked on during his House tenure centered around this objective.
As Sturgeon says, when Aspinall was first elected in 1948, his water philosophy--develop natural resources to the maximum extent--was in accord with most of America. When he was finally defeated in 1972, the environmental movement was in full swing, leaving Aspinall dragging behind.
When it came to environmental protection, Aspinall thought that all nature should either be developed--farmed, mined, or flooded--or made available to everyone, as scenery, by means of paved roads and other developments. And he could see no irony in his strange idea of preservation.
This is a fine book that should be read by students of political power, as well as by environmentalists and citizens of the American West.
It is also puzzling to realize that Aspinall was a Democrat--so much out of tune with the Democrats of today.