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<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>The false
promise of Hoover Dam<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>Sacramento
Bee-7/7/10 <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>By
Michael Hiltzik (L.A.Times) <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The
most striking sight greeting visitors to the Colorado River gorge known as
Black Canyon used to be the great wedge of alabaster concrete spanning the
canyon wall to wall. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>But
in recent years Hoover Dam, that enduring symbol of mankind's ingenuity, has
been upstaged by another sight signifying nature's power to resist even the
most determined effort to bring it under control: a broad white band stretching
along the edge of Lake Mead like a bathtub ring, marking how far the reservoir
has fallen below its maximum level.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The
nearly decade-long drought in the Colorado River Basin, which has lowered Lake
Mead by about 120 feet from its high-water mark, reminds us that the promises
made for Hoover Dam were always unrealistic. Delegates from the seven state
capitals who met in 1922 to apportion the river's bounty (under the supervision
of then-Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover) were led to believe that the river,
once dammed, would provide all the water their states could conceivably need to
fulfill their dreams of irrigation, industrial development and urban growth.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>To
the federal officials anxious to get the dam project approved, this was a
necessary subterfuge, for without it the states would never reach agreement and
the dam would not be built. But today we must confront the consequences of that
founding fiction. Hoover Dam truly made the West, but it has also confined it
in the straitjacket of an ever-intensifying water shortage. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Promises
based on the seemingly magical power of new technologies are almost always
excessive (witness the tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico). This year, as we
celebrate the 75th anniversary of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's dedication
of "the greatest dam in the world" on Sept. 30, 1935, we should also
recognize the dam's equivocal legacy to the West, and to the nation.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Connoisseurs
of irony will note that on that day, under a blistering sun and before 10,000
spectators and 20 million radio listeners, FDR claimed as a symbol of the New
Deal a public work conceived, designed and launched by his Republican
predecessors.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Indeed,
during the 1932 presidential campaign, candidate Roosevelt had savagely
attacked Hoover, his GOP opponent, for excessive deficit spending on projects
like the dam. Once ensconced in the White House, however, he quickly came to
appreciate the totemic power of great public works and their effectiveness at
representing the benefits that could be bestowed on the citizens by a visionary
administration.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>In
his dedication speech Roosevelt proclaimed that the federal government and the
seven states of the Colorado River Basin had jointly ensured that millions of
current and future residents in the West would enjoy "a just, safe and
permanent system of water rights." He promised an end to the river's
ancient cycle of drought and floods and a bountiful irrigation supply. He
called the dam "a splendid symbol" that had turned the unruly
Colorado into "a great national possession."<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The
nation took him at his word. Since that dedication year, the population of
California and the six other states of the basin has swelled by some 45 million
people. Much of this growth has been fueled by the dam and its precious
bounties of water and electrical power.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The
promise of abundant water and power took the brakes off the growth of Los
Angeles, San Diego and many other western cities; it encouraged farmers to
complacently plant the most water-thirsty crops; and it gave us city dwellers
the impression that we can water our lawns every day without worrying about
waste and runoff.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Yet
the world Hoover Dam made is now facing the era of limits. For decades
California was able to use Colorado River water formally apportioned to Arizona
and Nevada, because those states weren't developed enough to use their full
allocations. That condition ended in the mid-1990s, at which point California
had to give up nearly 20 percent of its Colorado River supply.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Thus
far we've managed a "soft landing" from that shock by crafting
intricate reallocations of water among the state's agricultural, urban and
ecological interests. But the balancing act is only getting harder, as a long
drought shrinks our water-supply cushion and population growth continues almost
unabated. Up to now, solutions to our water needs have been worked out in a
crisis atmosphere. In the future, they'll take place against a political
background too.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>In
the Central Valley, farmers are already marching to demand the construction of
more dams to provide more water for irrigation, as if one can just create
abundance out of thin air. Environmentalists' efforts to discharge water from
reservoirs to preserve riparian and marine habitats draw the ridicule of
conservative television pundits. Private companies have moved into the water
business, figuring that where there's scarcity there are profits.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>There
isn't enough water in the Colorado to serve all the demands we place on the
river, and there never was. This was evident to some people, like the great
Western explorer John Wesley Powell, who at an irrigation congress in 1893
announced, "Gentlemen, you are piling up a heritage of conflict and
litigation over water rights, for there is not sufficient water to supply the
land."<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Powell
was driven from the hall by a chorus of boos and catcalls. But time has proved
him right. It was thought that Hoover Dam would put an end to 50 years of
conflict over the water of the Colorado. It has not. We still delude ourselves
into thinking that it will; only a few years ago, in 2003, then-Interior
Secretary Gale Norton came out to the dam to sign 24 agreements transferring
water rights among various claimants - Indian tribes, irrigation districts,
Western cities, the government of Mexico. And she proclaimed, "With these
agreements, conflict on the river is stilled."<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The
truth is that conflict on the river will never be stilled, because there will
always be more demand for the water than there is water.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>We
should not regret the building of Hoover Dam, which Roosevelt hailed
three-quarters of a century ago as a "great achievement of American
resourcefulness, skill and determination." It was a bold enterprise for a
nation grappling with doubts about its place in the world at a time of crisis.
Dealing with the problems of resources and growth bequeathed us in part by that
remarkable Depression-era effort will require every bit as much boldness and
resourcefulness, or more.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
color:#948A54'>Byron Leydecker, JcT<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
color:#948A54'>Chair, Friends of Trinity River<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
color:#948A54'>PO Box 2327<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
color:#948A54'>Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
color:#948A54'>415 383 4810 land/fax<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
color:#948A54'>415 519 4810 mobile<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><u><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
color:#4F81BD'>bwl3@comcast.net <o:p></o:p></span></u></i></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><u><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
color:#4F81BD'>bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org <o:p></o:p></span></u></i></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><u><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
color:#4F81BD'>http://www.fotr.org<o:p></o:p></span></u></i></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
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