Book plug: Marc Reisner's "Cadillac Desert" (book & PBS? docufilm)

[eppur_se_muova]

Probably most people on this thread have already read this, but for those who haven't, this is a book which can really change the way you look at things. It gives a lot of background on the Bureau of Land Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers, and how they came to be responsible for so many dams. Mostly it's about western dams and irrigation, particularly in California, but good reading for the outrage. He describes some plans that were floated (sorry) to dam/divert rivers in Alaska and Canada to provide water to Southern California(!), which give you some idea how out of control things got at one point. Also describes some dam failures I've never read anything about elsewhere. His last book, "A Dangerous Place", published shortly after his death, mostly addresses earthquake danger, but levees and related issues figure very largely in that as well.

on edit: Oops, clicked in the wrong window. :blush: Meant to be responding to the survey about dams.

[NVMojo]

1. Excellent book. Read it!

[ochazuke]

2. First, dam-building mania. Now, road-building mania

The road-building companies, engineers, and government agencies are reluctant to admit that their idea (more and bigger roads alleviates congestion) is the exact opposite of the truth. Instead, they are pushing for 4-laning everything.

See this web page for information on one battle in this war: http://www.redbridgeroad.org

I enjoyed that documentary Cadillac Desert. There was another one on PBS about Robert Moses and how works like his killed the Bronx, the problem of traffic generation, and etc. Anyone rememeber the name of that?

[eppur_se_muova]

3. YES!! "The Master Builder", IIRC, part of the "The American Experience"

Elsewhere, I plugged Robert Caro's bio of Moses, "The Power Broker". Stupendous book -- 1100 pages, but worth it. Will post a link when I find it. The series was really tame compared to Caro's book. It had to be, there was just too much to cover in too little time.

[ochazuke]

4. Where's the dam(n) survey!?

I found that the PBS documentary on Moses was indeed on The American Experience. It was called "The World That Moses Built."

That American Experience is so great.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. this link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=43064&mesg_id=43064