The Consequences of Dam Construction in the American West
This chapter discusses the repercussions of the national dam construction program in the American West, including the false promise of water, overconsumption of groundwater, and the encroachment of desert on once fertile areas. It highlights the challenges faced by the Bureau of Reclamation and the water crisis in the region.
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Prior to 1900, the western United States comprised less than 5% of the country’s total population. By 2000, that number had quadrupled to over 20%, and was on track to continue growing as a percentage of the total until only recently, where the southern states have begun outpacing it in term of number of people added per year. Once known as the ‘Great American Desert’, the conquering of the West came not just from the Winchester repeating rifle and the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, but also by fundamentally transforming the landscape with massive hydrological projects in places like Southern California and Arizona, which naturally have little water, and harnessing the massive power of rivers like the Columbia in the Pacific Northwest to generate electricity. As with any physical system, however, there are limits to growth, and with recent record-breaking droughts compounded by never before seen populations, the rapid pace of expansion in the western United States may be coming to a close. Tonight we discuss the often untold history of how that growth was enabled, and why it may no longer be set to continue.
