Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water

In Chapter 8, Reisner returns to the Colorado River basin but this time focuses on Arizona’s water dilemma. To meet its growing water demand, the state began to overdraft its groundwater. By the 1960s, the annual overdraft reached 2.2-4 million acre-feet per year, resulting in the chronic depletion of the state’s groundwater and land subsidence (sinking of the Earth’s surface).

By the early 1950s, California had begun to use more than its allotted amount from the Colorado River. Out of sheer desperation, Arizona approached the Supreme Court to try and get the water allotment issue resolved between the basin states. The case, Arizona v. California, finally settled the longstanding dispute. It was one of the longest-running lawsuits ever in the Supreme Court, with the Court ruling mostly in Arizona’s favor. The most surprising ruling was that the Interior Secretary was not bound by the law of prior appropriation. This meant that during droughts or other natural calamities, the Interior Secretary would decide how much Colorado water each basin state received.

During the court case, Arizona was also seeking congressional approval for the Central Arizona Project (CAP), which would divert Colorado River water into the state’s more populous areas and to farmland where groundwater was depleted.