Cadillac Desert

- Season 1

(1997)

Los Angeles need for water in the early 20th century. William Mulholland takes the Owens River and building a 233-mile aqueduct to bring that water to the city. The 1928 St. Francis dam disaster. An era ends with 1988 Moro Lake decision.

The Colorado a controlled, litigated, domesticated, regulated and over-allocated river. Hoover Dam, the era of western dams. The end of free-flowing rivers. Glenn Canyon dam becomes the last straw. The Central Arizona Project a new threat.

Fierce political and environmental battles rage around California's Central Valley, the most productive and environmentally altered agricultural region in the history of the world. Today, water is tightly regulated and farmlands poisoned.

Water use -- and misuse - affect the lives of millions of people in India, China, Mexico, South America, the Mideast, Colorado and California. Facing rising water needs, advances in water conservation may be humanity's "last oasis."

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