Cracked: The Future of Dams in a Hot, Chaotic World

Dams are ineffective and an ecological and humanitarian hazard, contends journalist Hawley (Recovering a Lost River) in this impassioned exposé. He surveys the environmental damage caused by dams alongside stories of people displaced and ill-served by their construction. Explaining how dams destabilize ecosystems, he tells how putting up dams in the Westlands Water District near Fresno, Calif., in the 1960s disoriented migrating salmon by disrupting river currents and poisoned bird populations after poor irrigation led to the buildup of toxic chemicals. Hawley argues that the purported benefits of hydroelectric dams—green energy production and a steady water supply—are largely myths; the decomposition of organic flotsam that builds up in reservoirs produces methane at rates that can rival fossil fuel production, and as the globe heats up, evaporation will take an increasingly large cut of reservoir water. Highlighting the heartbreaking humanitarian consequences of dam construction, the author describes how the Bureau of Reclamation forced the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara tribes off their ancestral land in North Dakota for a pittance of the tract’s value, destroying their way of life. Hawley’s thorough research makes a damning case for rethinking how to source water, and anecdotes about ecosystems that have flourished after dam removals strike an optimistic note about the road ahead. Environmentalists will be riveted. Photos. (May)