2909 17-Mile Drive © 2003 by Leo Poppoff

Pebble Beach, CA 93953

\(831\) 375-3302

August 14, 2003

Basin Watch

by

Leo Poppoff

WATER WARS ARE GLOBAL

In 1870, Colonel Von Schmidt built a dam on the Truckee River with the
intention of funneling Lake Tahoe water through the mountain and down to
San Francisco. This was the start of the Tahoe water wars. Von Schmidt's
scheme failed, but not before it caused a violent reaction in Reno and
Carson City. Since Nevadans looked on the Truckee River as their very
own water source, harsh words were exchanged between Nevada and
California.

Later, a dam constructed at Tahoe City, impounded water for fluming logs
down the Truckee River, and lakefront owners found their beaches
flooded. The logging dam was replaced by a dam to impound water for
hydroelectric generation, and lakeshore flooding was even worse.

Then, the Bureau of Reclamation took over the dam to supply water for
farming in the area near Fallon. That effort, the Newlands Project, had
Teddy Roosevelt's backing. Water was diverted east of Reno by the Derby
Dam and sent through a canal to a dam on the Carson River. From there it
was distributed through irrigation canals to farms.

Apparently, the engineers designing the project made some slide rule
errors and over estimated the potential water supply. Farmers who had
been lured to the Newlands Project rebelled over the shortage of water.
Pyramid Lake levels dropped by roughly a foot per year, and the lake's
fishery was affected badly. Lake Winnemucca, next to Pyramid Lake and
teeming with fish and waterfowl, disappeared. The Stillwater marshes
dried up. And Tahoe's beaches continued to be affected by the need to
store as much water as possible behind the Tahoe City Dam.

During the severe drought of the1930s, armed confrontations were
reported between Tahoe residents and downstream farmers. Downstream
users tried to dig or dynamite the rim of the lake to allow water to
flow back into the river. A few years later, Nevada interests tried to
bore a hole in the east side of the lake to augment the flow down into
the Truckee Meadows. It's rumored that Mulholland, the engineer who
drained the Owens Valley for Los Angeles, had explored the idea of a
tunnel into Lake Tahoe for even more water for Los Angeles.

Much of this conflict over Tahoe water, which continues to this day, is
described by Nevada Historian, John M. Townley. His book, "Turn this
Water into Gold," is a fascinating account of the fight for Tahoe's
water.

Yet, our local battles pale when compared with water wars around the
globe. The scope of the world wide water problem is chronicled in a very
readable book by Diane Raines Ward, entitled "Water Wars: Drought,
Flood, Folly and the Politics of Thirst." Ward is an environmental
journalist who has traveled around the world, visiting water projects
from South America to the Middle East. Her descriptions are not only
very readable, but they're objective and insightful.

Ward observes that "almost half the earth's land lies in river basins
shared by at least two nations and 80 percent of the world's available
fresh water flows through international river basins . . . most
countries share water more or less amicably but in some of the world's
most water short regions . . . the Middle East and Asia . . . the
strains are beginning to show."

The world's oldest big dam is in the region with the bitterest water
conflicts -- the Middle East. In the Egyptian desert lies the remains of
a dam that was 348 feet long, 276 feet wide at the base, and 200 feet
high. Made of 100,000 tons of masonry and gravel, it was meant to hold
some 20 million cubic feet of water. It was poorly designed and had
probably failed quite soon after construction. Trying to capture water
for desert dwellers and their farms has gone on, then, for at least
5,000 years.

The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers originate in the hills of Central
Turkey. They flow southward into Syria and Iraq. Turkey has embarked on
a massive project to put 22 very large dams and reservoirs on the two
rivers, reducing rather drastically the water supply of Syria and Iraq.
An example of the bitter feelings over this project was the shooting
down of a Turkish survey aircraft by Syrian MIGs -- in Turkish skies.

The famous Six-Day war of 1967 was ignited, according to Ward, by the
Arab League's anger "at Israel's construction of its National Water
Carrier, which had appropriated much of the water of Jordan River for
use in Israel." The Arabs then built canals to divert water from Israel,
who immediately bombed the projects. The subsequent attack on Israel by
Syria, Egypt and Jordan, probably had many causes, Ward explains, but
water was a priority for both sides.

There's much, much more in Ward's book on the world's water problems and
the environmental effects of past and current attempts to solve them.
And it's not all negative.

In spite of our local conflicts over Tahoe's water, we're fortunate. Not
a shot has been fired in anger.

Comments? Send them to basinwatch@earthlink.net