Farewell, Promised Land: Waking from the California Dream [Reprint 2020 ed.] 9780520328976

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F A R E W E L L , P R O M I S E D LAND

"Lake Moola" billboard, Valhalla trailer court, West Sacramento, 1993

FAREWELL, PROMISED LAND

Wakingfrom

the California Dream

ROBERT DAWSON AND GRAY BRECHIN

U N I V E R S I T Y

OF

C A L I F O R N I A

P R E S S

B E R K E L E Y

L O S

A N G E L E S

L O N D O N

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

University o f California Press, Ltd. London, England

© 1999 by T h e Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dawson, Robert, 1950 — Farewell, promised land: waking from the California Dream / Robert Dawson and Gray Brechin, p.

cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN o-5/o-I[IIJ"5 (cloth: alk. paper). — ISÍN 0-5*0-21124-) (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. California—Environmental conditions.

2. California —

Environmental conditions—Pictorial works. management—California. GEi55.c2.Dj8

I. Brechin, Gray A.

Environmental II. Title.

1999

jé (.7'009794 — d c i i

98-240 jo CIP

Printed in Italy 9

8

7

6

5

4

5

2

1

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous contributions toward the publication of this book provided by the following organizations and individuals: T h e LEF Foundation The Strong Foundation for Environmental Values Richard M . Davis Alice Q. Howard Paul Sack

The publisher also gratefully acknowledges the contribution provided by the General Endowment Fund of the University of California Press.

For Walker Manchester Dawson

and his generation. ROBERT DAWSON

To my brother Vern> who gave me the tools with which to write and teach. GRAY BRECHIN

CONTENTS

xi

Foreword, by Raymond F. Dasmann

xiti

Preface, by Robert

xvii

Acknowledgments

Dawson

ONE

i

THE ABSENCE OF THINGS

TWO

jj

THE PRICE OF GOLD

THREE

j/

COERCED CORNUCOPIA

FOUR

)•*>'}

skull and crossbones near the t u r n o f f . T h e owners o f the mine are

" S u l f u r o u s f u m e s belched f r o m tall chimneys f o r m a thin c l o u d

long gone, leaving the utility district that supplies the E a s t Bay with

that hangs o m i n o u s l y in m i d a i r as a pall that w o u l d hide f r o m the

its water h o l d i n g the toxic bag.

sun the desolation, the naked hillsides, and the miserably blighted

Penn was a piker in c o m p a r i s o n with I r o n M o u n t a i n , a m a r z i p a n -

and blackened and shriveled leafless bushes and scrub pine that

hued deposit o f copper, gold, iron, zinc, and c a d m i u m m the S i s -

were once part o f the fresh green hillside-carpeting." M o l t e n slag

k i y o u m o u n t a i n s southwest o f Shasta D a m . N e a r the peak o f its

p o l l u t e d the water, w h i c h " f l o w s back into the river, laden with

p r o d u c t i o n , in 1899, the San Francisco Chronicle described the "dreary

chemicals that in time m u s t certainly destroy the marine life o f the

d e a t h " the mine's smelter spread over the s u r r o u n d i n g countryside:

Sacramento."5

THE

PRICE'

OF

G O L D

Erosion from

smelter

now covered

194! (photo by Russell Administration,

courtesy

Lee for Library

by Lake Shasta,

the Farm of

Security

Congress)

An EPA spokesman today describes the abandoned mine as "a

the West—"countless" because a geologist officially charged with

machine in the bowels of the mountain that can't be turned off." 6

developing an inventory of abandoned mines for the California

Rated by the EPA's Superfund toxic cleanup program as one of the

Water Quality Control Board was given no funding by the state to

ten worst sites in the nation, Iron Mountains acidic runoff feeds a

do so. 7

blood-red reservoir that frequently spills over into the Sacramento

The toxic legacy of mining extends far beyond the hydraulic am-

River, killing what fish remain there while adding kick to the drink-

phitheaters, dredge fields, and mineheads, for mining requires sup-

ing water of millions of Californians downstream. It is only one of

port industries, which left their own contributions to the growing

countless mines that continue to bleed without cease throughout

costs of cleanup. San Francisco's South of Market and North Beach

THE

PRICE

OF

C O L D

Aerial

view

of Iron Sacramento

Mountain

dam

leacbmg

River,

near

Anderson,

into

the ¿992

districts lie atop soil heavily contaminated by the refineries and

the uranium needed for California reactors and weapons were never

machine shops once clustered there, while the East Bay abounds m

told of their sacrificial role in national security and energy policy.

the former sites of explosives and chemical plants, iron works, and

In most cases, soil stripped and destroyed, and all that it supported,

smelters that long used the bay as a handy d u m p for their wastes.

cannot be replaced. M i n i n g set in motion an avalanche of enduring

Lawsuits to determine liability have increasingly consumed the

consequences that continue to this day. It contributed far more than

Superfund's budget; cleanup, when it is done at all, primarily shifts

most realize to the absence of things once common in California.

costs to the taxpayer.

Just as harmful as the physical damage it wrought upon the land,

In many cases, however, cleanup is impossible, and no amount of

I believe, is the way that mining made attitudes once thought shame-

remediation can correct the damage. Navajos and Sioux who mined

ful appear so normal that they were quickly taken for granted and

THE

P R I C E

OF

G O L D

Cyanide tanks, Queen Esther Company, 1 9 0 7 (courtesy Huntington

Mojave

District,

Library, San Marino,

California)

even celebrated. Chief among these was an all-consuming material-

of a later era whose president closely identified with the Hollywood

ism with which Californians became as identified as oil-rich Texans

westerns in which he had starred suggest that little has changed but

were later. "Money is our only stimulus and the getting of it our

the dimensions of the costs passed on to the public and to posterity.

only pleasure," boasted one miner. "Never was any country so well

I remain fascinated by the legacy of mining, whether standing on

calculated to cultivate the spirit of avarice."

8

an old tailings pile in a lonely valley or viewing historical images

Mining made the West synonymous with a get-rich-quick, gut-

in the archives. Above all, when I look at Carleton Watkins's pho-

and-cut attitude. Gambling, especially with other people's money,

tographs of the Tahoe Basin flayed of its pines, of the hydraulic can-

pervaded nearly every aspect of life, fueled by the illusion that all

nons laying waste to the Sierra foothills and gold dredges to the

could achieve the well-advertised successes of the few. T h e scandals

Central Valley, when I see pictures of smelters belching and ore skips

THE

PRICE

OF

GOLD

dumping their smoking slag into salmon runs and drinking water, or smoke from the strip-mined coal seams of Four Corners hanging low in the Grand Canyon, or clouds of uranium oxide dust blowing off the dumps in the Southwest, I know that the most enduring legacy of the California Gold Rush has been its unreflective violence. If the miners could do that to a place they so frequently claimed to love, then they could do it to one another—and they did. Glamorized by Hollywood and television, the mayhem of the mining camps entered the national bloodstream like the runoff from the mines staining the rivers. Not even farming was immune, for in California, agriculture became something else altogether.

A b o v e : Monument KFC„

Mojaw,

to terminus

O p p o s i t e : Yellow Aster gaming

of 20-Mule

Team Borax

and

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