Description:
Diverting the Gila explores the complex web of tension, distrust, and political maneuvering to divide and divert the scarce waters of Arizona's Gila River among residents of Florence, Casa Grande, and the Pima Indians in the early part of the twentieth century. It is the sequel to David H. DeJong's 2009 Stealing the Gila, and it continues to tell the story of the forerunner to the San Carlos Irrigation Project and the Gila River Indian Community's struggle to regain access to their water.
Review Quotes: "The author provides a detailed study of good intentions, betrayal, and compromise to resolve the use of the Gila River by the Pima and white farmers in central Arizona. It also is the story of greed with an underlying foundation of racism on the part of white landowners against the Pima. In Arizona and the West, water is power--economic, social, and political. Its use is not neutral, and the Pima did not have it."--R. Douglas Hurt, author of The Green Revolution in the Global South: Science, Politics, and Unintended Consequences