Drowning the Dream

"A well documented history of boosterism, population growth, water development, and the loss of the quality of life in California. Carle brings the water development history current, i.e., the present CalFed bureaucratic attempt to restore fisheries, have water security for everyone, and end the water wars. Carle inspires us to save what is left of California. Californians can choose population growth control rather than the continuing spiral of population increase and never-ending demand for water in the water-short West. After reading this book I think most would agree that we had better hurry up and make this choice."-Lee W. Miller Fishery Scientist and Board Member of Californians for Population Stabilization "David Carle, born and raised in Orange County, knows first hand the changes in Southern California during the past 50 years. For 20 years, the ranger at Mono Lake Tufa State Reserve...learned how water exports can devastate a productive and scenic ecosystem....This book belongs in the hands of anyone interested in California's history and future."-Sally Gaines Co-founder, Mono Lake Committee "Discussions of population and growth control are often difficult, but in Drowning the Dream David Carle brings a new, strongly reasoned approach to the table. In the process, Carle takes on the ultimate questions of California water politics: What kind of state do we want to live in? How much more growth does California really need? Can we keep the California Dream alive? California is naturally limited by its water supply...and, therefore, water can be the tool to limit the state's future growth naturally--once we finally abandon the untenable proposal that more water can always be found."-Geoffrey McQuilkin Co-Executive Director, Mono Lake Committee "Drowning the Dream dramatically illustrates the connections between water supplies and population growth. It clearly explains the role of water development in promoting sprawl. David Carle uses fascinating historical anecdotes and quotations to demonstrate the choices Californians have had in managing the water wealth of their state. He details the current threats to the most productive agricultural lands in the world and dares to question the inevitability of growth. He cautions us that indifference will allow growth to accelerate and makes a strong case for consciously choosing stability and sustainability."-Rick Kattelmann Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory "For anyone at all interested in water issues in California, this book must go on your bookshelf alongside your DVD of Roman Polanski's Chinatown. Masterfully researching his subject--from newspaper clippings to first-person accounts--David has done a wonderful thing in this book. He not only brings the history of the state alive through his writing but he does something else--which I consider very difficult and very smart--he uses this history as a foundation for a deeper consideration of the future--for helping us understand where we might go from here."-Thomas Curwen Deputy Book Editor Los Angeles Times "For anyone genuinely concerned with the continuing loss of a finer California, David Carle offers a high moral and technological challenge, together with a desperate (and perhaps final!) hope."-Dr. Kevin Starr State Librarian of California "Water has always been the defining element in California's history, driving its dreams of expansion. Carle tells that story well--but what his inventive and informative text also demonstrates is that if the state does not soon turn back on its own history, its infatuation with limitless growth and the water to supply it may create a world too ugly to contemplate."-T.H. Watkins Wallace Stegner Professor of Western American Studies Montana State University .,."in any endlessly growing population, the challenges of dealing with fixed water supply become more and more difficult, the pressures to develop new s

DAVID CARLE teaches biology at Cerro Coso Community College, Eastern Sierra College Center. He has worked as a state park ranger at Hearst Castle, in the gold country of the Sierra foothills, and was unit ranger in charge of the State Indian Museum in Sacramento. Since 1982, at the Mono Lake Tufa State Reserve, he has shared the unit ranger position with his wife, participating in the long effort to protect that Eastern Sierra inland sea from the effects of stream diversions to Los Angeles.

Introduction: Changes and Choices Frontierland to Fantasyland In Grizzly Days Save the Cows... Horses Off the Cliffs Gold Fever: Sick Forefathers Statehood, State Hoods and State Laws R&R Railroads and Real Estate, Citrus and Sunshine Water Choices (1)--Eastern Sierra Water Melodrama on the Right Side of California Life in the Big City--How Did They Get Away With It? Did They See Where They Were Going? What If the Los Angeles Aqueduct Had Never Been Built? Water Choices (2)--Colorado River Water "And Lest Our City Shrivel and Die..." Boom! Postwar, Postaqueduct Arrivals People Fumes: Just Don't Inhale Water Choices (3)--Northern California Water The Northern End of the Pipe Too Much Is Not Enough Sprawling Gridlock Tomorrowland Today's Choice (1): Who Needs Farms? Today's Choice (2): The Environment--Has Mono Lake Really Been Saved? Visualizing Tomorrow--Just Say No to Water? References Index