Title: Dreamt Land
Chasing Water and Dust Across California
Author: Mark Arax
Date: November 11,2024
Honestly, I’ not sure who sent me this book, as our mail department keeps the packaging showing the sender. Little did I know, it was a complete book on; California’s history, the evolution of San Francisco and Los Angeles post the gold rush in the late 1800’s, the establishment of the agricultural based Central Valley and its water resources, human and governmental behavior, life’s ups and downs, and much more!
These 530+ pages are like an encyclopedia of information, but provided in various stories of personalities and events. Yes there is a lot about water rights and water allocation in California, but also agriculture, human nature and so forth. But ultimately the book is about human self interest over a long period of time by all kinds of types of constituents, factions, government agencies etc. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by that, but the scale of self interest by ALL involved is disappointing to put it mildly. Armed with the facts from the book, 70%+ of California’s water is used by agriculture, much of it for several non essential food types( almonds and pomegranate for example) when one looks at alternative uses for the water. Only 30% for the population of California in SFO, LAX, and So. Cal in general. The rationing the people of California have to endure at the expense of propping up the wealth of the corporate growers or wealthy families of these water consuming non essential food crops who have mansions elsewhere but use all the water in the Central Valley comes across as ridiculous.
The book does a good job explaining the weakness/ineptness of government policy. The book portrays it as highly doubtful the issues will ever get resolved in the context of “redoing” the policy, so water for its people will always be California’s achilles heel. Clearly one more reservoir isn’t the issue!
The author does a nice job “humanizing” the life of the Hispanic workers who do all the work in the Central Valley, also sharing many interesting histories of some of the families over multiple generations. One also gets a good understanding of the living conditions provided these workers.
I personally am annoyed at all the political verbal warfare in California around this topic, when there are clearly some solutions. But greed seems to continue ruling the day. I would have appreciated the author contrasting these issues to the USDA and its policies subsidizing other types of growers like wheat and soy beans , cheese to manage volumes prices and so forth. Clearly there is an overlap in policy in how the government thinks about water, but I didn’t see where there’s been a thorough review of those policies, discussion around alternatives and action plans to address improvements for California unfortunately. Just too bad.
As I reflect how I might use the book once released, I come to thinking about what I learned from the author as to “writing a book” people want to read, since that’s what I’m also working on. Some of the media critics cited at the beginning of the book use words like “deeply researched, or personal, or weaves reportage, history and memoir, and a storyteller”. All these attributes in some measure useful and thoughtful for our book as well! BJ
