Book Reviews

Managing Water: Avoiding Crisis in California

by Dorothy Green
University of California Press, 2007

$24.95, 324 pages

Water is life in California. The megalopolis of Southern California would not exist without the complex network of statewide waterworks that control, store, manage, and deliver fresh water hundreds of miles from where the original rain and snow fell. Dorothy Green, as the founding president of Heal the Bay in Santa Monica and the Los Angeles and San Gabriel river watershed councils, has spent a lifetime unraveling the complicated plumbing and politics that delivers water in California. In Managing Water, Green focuses her study on the Los Angeles region to tell a larger story about California water policy. Green's prescription for sustainability is a statewide water policy built upon utilizing local sources, conservation, groundwater recharging, and reuse of treated water. Fans of Marc Reisner's classic Cadillac Desert would enjoy Managing Water, but this detailed tome is not for water policy beginners. --Brian Smith

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