A Classic a Quarter Century Later

• Author: G. Tracy Mehan III
• Pages: 145-148

145

A Classic a Quarter

Century Later

By G. Tracy Mehan III

Cadillac Deser t: The Ame rican West and Its Disap pearing Water,

by Marc Reisner. Penguin Books. 582 pages.

From the May/ June 2011 issue of The Environmental Forum .

Marc Reisner’s masterpiece Cadilla c

Desert : e American West and Its

Disappea ring Water is as compel-

ling today as it was on publ ication in 1986.

It was, cle arly, advocac y journalism, but jour-

nalism of the highest order fortied with a

tremendous amount of re search, study, and

numerous face-to-face inter views. It docu-

mented the tra nsformation of John Wesley

Powell’s vision of a federal ir rigation prog ram

into a perverse realit y of pork-barrel spend-

ing and envi ronmental devastat ion. Recent

scientic an alysis has c onrmed most of the

book’s prog nostications.

e year before Reisner’s untimely death at

age 51, Cadillac Desert was 61st on a list of t he

100 best nonction books in English in the 20th century, as compiled by a

panel from the Modern Library, a division of Random House. It was a nal-

ist for a National Book Critics’ Circle Award and inspired an award-winning

documentary by the same name which was rst broadcast in 1997.

So much of the waste and destruction perpet rated by the federal Bureau

of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers, which were engaged in a

dysfunctional competition with each other for decades, were predicated on

the “myth of the independent yeoman farmer,” according to Reisner. is

Jeersonian ideal, ultimately, morphed into rank rent-seeking by wealthy

growers, big engineering and construct ion rms a nd u rban water depart-

ments—all of whom were adept at “farming the government.”