Three Inside Views of ‘Mulholland’s Dream’

The story chronicled in my film, “Mulholland’s Dream,” may be distasteful to columnist Howard Rosenberg, but the fact remains that the story is unfortunately true (“Water and Power--and Accuracy,” Calendar, June 23).

Let’s get real. William Mulholland, for all his honest good intentions and real achievements, did arrange for the city to decimate Owens Valley, did plan the draining of Mono Lake, did plan a second aqueduct to Mono and a second to the Owens, did set in motion the machinery of water colonialism that allowed booster-driven growth to swell the city far beyond any natural possibilities and did build a huge dam that collapsed hours after he inspected it.

The film was meticulously researched, fact-checked and updated far beyond the bounds of Marc Reisner’s courageous 1987 book, and vetted by a panel of academic advisors. If The Times can find factual errors, they should be specifically identified.

What Rosenberg ignores is the stark fact that Mulholland’s vision and engineering genius laid the groundwork for the profound environmental transformation of the American West, for the building of a great civilization in the desert, where none could possibly have existed in the natural order of things.

The dangers that come with that great re-plumbing lie at the heart of “Cadillac Desert’s” stories.

Perhaps Rosenberg would rather these stories, with their message of greed, technological hubris and unintended consequences, not be told on television. Denial, after all, is not just a river in Egypt.

Author Marc Reisner:

As a Bay Area resident who drinks water conveyed almost 200 miles from Yosemite National Park, I am in no position to say that L.A. shouldn’t have built its aqueduct. The real issue here is the ancient one of ends trying to justify means. I believe “Cadillac Desert” addresses it fairly and thoughtfully.

Catherine Mulholland, whom Rosenberg quotes in his column, has all but dedicated her life to sanctifying her grandfather’s reputation; to suggest, as the film does, that he was a great man with impressive flaws is apparently to slight the Prophet Muhammad. (The elder Mulholland’s greatest failing, intolerance of contrary opinions, seems to persist in the family gene pool.)

When Robert Phillips, Rosenberg’s other pot-calling-the-kettle-black source, was a top official at (and ultimately manager of) the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, his agency was plotting openly to reroute Northern California’s Eel River--now a National Wild and Scenic River--to Los Angeles. One of his cohorts at the department concocted the preposterous scheme to divert some of Alaska’s rivers to California and the Southwest.

How do you expect one of the last unrepentant super-engineers to react to the suggestion that we pay a price for liberties taken with nature?

More to the point, why did the Assn. of California Water Agencies--among whose membership I can count few raving fans--show this film repeatedly at its recent spring convention? Why is the Metropolitan Water District helping us promote it?

And why have other critics said that the film lets Mulholland, and others like him, off too easily?

Executive producer Sandra Itkoff:

As Rosenberg states in his column, the book behind the documentary series “Cadillac Desert” has been highly debated. Debate, in fact, is one of the reasons for producing issue-oriented documentary series such as “Cadillac Desert.”

The “Mulholland’s Dream” segment of the series goes to great pains to recount history as it happened. The “Cadillac Desert” series as a whole strives to bring to a broad television audience a new perspective to the question, “What are the consequences of turning on your tap and letting the water flow?”

Unfortunately, Rosenberg’s article recognizes the importance of debate but emphasizes only one side. The result is an article that “shoots the messenger.”