1) I have been reminded (via a Facebook post by the Center for Biological Diversity’s Great Basin guy Rob Mrowka) that I’ve been meaning to point you all in the direction of Chance of Rain, a wonderful blog on western water and related politics by writer Emily Green. Of recent note there are Emily’s update on a suit over Las Vegas’ attempt to siphon water from the Snake Valley (mentioned here before) and a fascinating look at how biologists and land managers are rethinking tamarisk, an invasive plant long the bane of western ecologists that has nonetheless become crucial habitat for the southwestern willow flycatcher.

2) I’m finishing up reading Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century, which I heard flogged on NPR’s Fresh Air last week. It’s a fascinating read, authoritatively researched, and made very personal by author Michael Hiltzik, who tells stories of the personalities involved in the dam construction project, from Presidents to wage laborers. There’s a problem, though. Hiltzik seems to make absolutely no mention of the environmental impact of the dam and reservoir, aside from mentioning two towns and some archaeological resources flooded as Lake Mead filled. I don’t usually like to criticize books for what the author didn’t write, but in this case Hiltzik seems to underline the omission by repeatedly referring to the desert landscape as “barren,” devoid of life and notable only as a blank slate on which humans create their profitable projects. There is no mention of the free-flowing river’s native fisheries driven toward extinction by the dam’s construction. There is no description of the old-growth desert drowned by the rising waters, no description of the effect on the estuary at the river’s mouth on the Sea of Cortez. The only mention I’ve found in the entire book of environmental effects other than earthquakes due to the weight of the impounded water is this passage, on page 400, in a discussion of the dam’s chances of being built today:

The environmental impact statements mandated today for large-scale public and private developments by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and subsequent legislation certainly would have consumed years, if not decades, of study and debate, and surely would not have become final without several rounds of litigation. Under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, a further assessment of the dam’s impact on wildlife habitats in the reservoir zone and downstream would be required prior to construction. America’s unconcern with those issues in the 1920s and 1930s facilitated the construction of the dam, but also led, doubtlessly, to the eradication of undiscovered, unrecorded, and unrecoverable habitats and the extermination of untold species of flora and fauna.

An apt turn of phrase, that: “untold species of flora and fauna.” Their stories remain untold by Hiltzik. It’s about like writing about the engineering efforts that went into building Apollo 13 and the deadly drama of the crew’s struggle to cope with equipment failure, reserving for one short passage on page 400 of your 408-page book any mention that the whole thing took place in outer space. The desert environment isn’t just a backdrop. We know many of the the changes in the desert since the dam was built and they are staggering. We know the species lost and damaged. They have names: the bonytail and humpback chubs, Colorado pikeminnow, and razorback sucker near extirpated from the river below Hoover Dam; the Colorado Delta clam, once so abundant that its shells formed miles-long ridges throughout the delta, now endangered and found in only a few spots; the desert tortoise, threatened for the most part by human development of the “barren desert” that would not have been possible without Hoover Dam.

That, given any kind of objective point of view, is the story of the building of Hoover Dam. In omitting it, Hiltzik relegated his book to the realm of political and engineering minutiae. It is entertaining, informative, and extremely well-written, but an entertaining, informative, well-written book of trivia is still, when you get down to it, a book of trivia. And that’s a damned shame.

3) Also heard on that NPR show, last night, an interview with the wonderful Mark Moffett, who is to ants what Roy Chapman Andrews was to Mongolian fossils. Moffett’s got a new book out, which I’ll be reading, entitled Adventures among Ants: A Global Safari with a Cast of Trillions. The book includes new science on superorganisms, supercolonies, and behavior and ecology, as well as what promise to be hilarious stories by Moffett. For examples of said hilarity, check out Moffett’s blog.

1. 
   Onthepublicrecord 2010 06 20 at 7:21:40 pm

   Oh, that’s funny.  I was in LA last weekend, and the thought crossed my mind that we should get coffee and invite Ms. Green as well.  I’ve not met her in person, but from her blog, it seemed like that would be a pleasant table.  I got caught up in other projects, but the next time I’m in LA, I’ll try to arrange that.  Now I see that you’ve been reading her work already.

2. 
   Shaun 2010 06 20 at 8:20:16 pm

   Great way to characterize Hiltzik’s omissions.  I had just seen his book at the store the other day.  It reminded me of Cadillac Desert, only it seemed to be authored by a person from the Bureau of Reclamation from the 1950s, marveling at a mass of concrete without care for the consequences.

3. 
   Charlie 2010 06 21 at 7:37:10 pm

   I am having a really hard time buying the flycatcher-tamarisk thing, myself.  I mean, honestly, the reason it spreads is because nothing eats it right?  so, the willow flycatcher may be able to nest in it, but I can’t imagine it will be finding many insects around it… that is until the tamarisk beetle arrives!  Cottonwoods grow so fast too and in my experience colonize very fast, it seems like by the time the tamarisk died there’d be cottonwoods to nest in and in the mean time so many beetles to eat.  Has anyone looked at the actual effect of the beetles eating tamarisk on the flycatcher, or are they just generally noticing the bird nesting in the stuff?