Reisner argues that the West's hydroclimate is inherently incapable of supporting the vast cities and industrial agriculture established there.
Water development was driven less by necessity and more by political capital, bureaucratic rivalry (specifically between the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers ), and class interests.
Many projects, while costing taxpayers billions, disproportionately benefited a small number of large-scale farmers who relied on artificially cheap water.
Marc Reisner's (1986) is a seminal work of environmental history and advocacy journalism that remains more pertinent than ever. It chronicles the aggressive, often hubristic transformation of the arid American West into a "garden" through massive engineering and political maneuvering. Core Themes and Arguments