It's hard to argue that we shouldn't have done any of the big dams out west. But there's at least a good argument against the Glen Canyon. And, especially with the benefit of hindsight, the seriously proposed dam sites in the Grand Canyon would have been very not good.
In the east the proposed Tocks Island Dam was pursued for a long time. Again, especially with the benefit of hindsight, this was also pretty clearly not good.
Silicon Valley would die, though. Where on earth does its water come from? Yes, 85% of the water from Lake Mead. The Los Angeles basin is built up far beyond its natural sustainable water capacity. Unless there is a great leap forward in desalination technology some dams remain a rather necessary evil.
[1] https://www.zone7water.com/images/pdf_docs/waterways/waterwa...
This is, of course, snark - but a lot of people fail to realize that agriculture is incredibly undervalue, for how important it is to society.
Unfortunately it’s too late for New Jersey and most of the mid-Atlantic.
Desalination has been the technological breakthrough of next Tuesday for most of my life. I’ll be happy to see an actual deployment. Until then we wait.
It produces some pretty nasty byproducts, so a tough sell in California, but affordability is a total non-issue.
eg. https://www.melbournewater.com.au/water/securing-our-water-s...
Cut the water supply and LA will do fine, but the farms will die. (Millions of voters vs. a handful of relatively minor donors. It's an easy decision.)