The Untold Story of the Lower Colorado River Authority / John Williams.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Williams, John, 1951 September 13- author.

Series:

River books (Series)

River books

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Lower Colorado River Authority--History.

Lower Colorado River Authority.

River engineering--Texas--Colorado River Watershed--History.

River engineering.

Water resources development--Texas--Colorado River Watershed--History.

Water resources development.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

College Station, [Texas] : Texas A&M University Press, 2016.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Arguably, no other institution has transformed the heart of Texas like the Lower Colorado River Authority. Born in the Great Depression of the 1930s, LCRA built a chain of dams and brought predictability to the cycles of extreme droughts and floods that had long plagued Austin and other communities. It also brought hydroelectric power--and with that, modern-day civilization--to the hard-scrabble regions of Central and South Texas. With those achievements, and the support of powerful political leaders like Lyndon Johnson, LCRA for years was touted as one of the state's major success stories. But LCRA has never been a stranger to controversy, and while it continues to provide much of the energy and water that fuels the economic engine of Austin and beyond, most people know very little about LCRA. In this book, readers will learn about the forces of nature and politics that combined to create LCRA; the colorful personalities who operated, supported, or fought with the agency; its spectacular successes, periodic blunders, and occasional failures; and its evolution into one of the largest public power organizations in Texas.

Contents:

Foreword / by Andrew Sansom

Preface

Acknowledgments

Creating LCRA

The era of frustration

False start

New Deal

Dams on the river

Setting up shop

The ultimate project

The day LCRA blew up a dam

Low cost power

"We have taken over"

Living better electrically

Public power's dividends

The winds of change

Energy and other crises

The power to make a difference

Water

Floods and droughts

Clean water

Last rights

Parks and recreation

The Highland Lakes

The legend of Hippie Hollow

The Colorado River trail

Epilogue: Toward the first hundred years

Appendix: State water regulatory agencies.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-62349-346-3

OCLC:

935985653