The Great Thirst

By Norris Hundley, Jr.

Paperback, 492 pages

$ 25.95 plus tax and shipping ($31.97)

Norris Hundley, Jr., has taken a difficult & complex subject &, with sanity, objectivity & smoothness of style, woven a story of politics, power, greed & legal battles from the gold rush days to the Mono Lakes litigation & the public trust doctrine. William Kahrl, author of ÒWater and PowerÓ, says this is the best reference on California water history that there is.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

Contents

1.    The Aboriginal Waterscape: Manipulation and Near Harmony

The Waterscape

 Waterways and Lifeways

Agriculture and Cultural Patterns

Symbiosis and Community

2.    Hispanic Patterns: Community and Authority

"Apportion Water Justly and Fairly"

 Lessons in Survival

Misjudgments

Royal Authority and Community Rights

Community Obligations

Community Rights and Private Rights

When Rights Collide: Bien Procumunal

The Darker Side

3.    The American Takeover: Laissez-Faire, Localism, and Monopoly

American Political Culture

"First in Time, First in Right"

Hydraulicking and Environmental Destruction

The Politics of Flood Control

Riparian Rights

Monopoly and a Clash of Rights

Lux v. Haggin and the California Doctrine

The Irrigation District and the Persistence of Monopoly

Localism and the Search for Alternatives

The Rainmakers

The Progressive Impulse: From Laissez-Faire

to Centralized Planning

Toward the Reclamation Act, 115

4.    Urban Imperialism: A Tale of Two Cities

Los Angeles: From Hispanic Village to American City

Legerdemain and the Pueblo Water Right

Girding for Expansion: Municipal Control

The Owens Valley Caper

An Aqueduct for the Future

The San Fernando Valley: Insider Information for Private Gain

Los Angeles's Water Colonies

The Tragedy and Legacy of the Expert: William Mulholland

San Francisco: Instant City with an Instant Water Problem

Helch Hetchy Predicaments: The Federal Government and Boss Ruef

Hetch Hetchy Embattled

Toward a Utilitarian Triumph

The Ironies of Victory

A Comparison of Two Cities

5.    Hydraulic Society Triumphant: The Great Projects

The Boulder Canyon Project

The Imperial Valley Impulse

The Colorado River Compact

New Players and New Battles

Compromises and Enactment

The Imperial Valley and the Betrayal of Reclamation Law

New Water and Accelerated Urbanization

The Central Valley Project

Progressive Era Promise and Disappointment

Toward a State Plan

American Political Culture and the Central Valley Project

From State to Federal Project

 A Project at Last

 The Battle over Acreage Limitation

 "Technical Compliance": A Bipartisan Legacy

 Public versus Private Power

The State Water Project

 A State Plan

Fragmentation, Compromise, and Confusion

 New Water, Growth, and Inequities

6.     Hydraulic Society on the Defensive

Arizona v. California

The Environmental Movement

The Peripheral Canal Fight: Round One

The Peripheral Canal Fight: Round Two

The Pueblo Water Right Challenged

Mono Lake and the Public Trust Doctrine

Owens Valley War: Renewed and Cooled But Not Over

The Fight for the Right to Instream Use

An Increasingly Vulnerable Southland

7.    Water Policy at a Crossroads

Tradition versus Reform; The Fate of the Stanislaus River

New and Old Challenges to Dams and Levees

Dams at Risk

The Impermanence of Dams: Earthquakes, Silt, Neglect, and Flawed Planning

Los Angeles: A Vexing Lesson in Dams, Levees, Floods, and Public Policy

Vulnerable Levees and the Delta

Environmental Crisis: Bay, Delta, and CALFED

Environmental Crisis: Central Valley

Environmental Crisis: Southern California

Subsidized Agriculture and Social Inequity

Water Marketing: Hope, Threat, and Challenge

The Imperial Valley, MWD, and the Market

The Imperial Valley, MWD, San Diego, and the Market

The Wheeling-Rate War: MWD and San Diego

The Governor Intercedes

One War Down, Another to Go

The Central Valley Project, "Reform," and the Market

MWD, the San Joaquin Valley, and the Market

 

The Quest for Security and Equity

Open Spaces and Farmland: Going, Going, ...

A Confusion of Laws

Chaotic Management

Calls for Reform, Fanciful and Otherwise

8.    Reflections

Notes

Bibliography

Index

 

 

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