January 8, 2010.
.... The power of simple fact-checking aside, why would California officials exaggerate -- if not outright lie -- about the drought? Well, the issue here is less about the drought itself and more about what a drought -- real or not -- can help achieve. If there is one thing 2009 revealed about California's "action hero" governor, it's that he is eagerly willing to serve as the front man for the sleaziest, most crooked business cartel in the state: a de facto water oligarchy made up of billionaire corporate farmers who run vast stretches of the state like their own personal fiefdoms, exploiting migrant workers for slave labor and soaking the taxpayers for billions of dollars in subsidies every year. And like all good businessmen, they aren't letting a good mini-crisis go to waste. Their objective is to whip up fears of a drought-related calamity to push through a "solution" they've been having wet dreams about for the past five decades: a multi-billion-dollar aqueduct the width of the Panama Canal that would give them near total control of more than half of California's water supplies....
http://www.alternet.org/story/144992/why_just_about_everything_you_hear_about_california%27s_water_crisis_is_wrong%2C_wrong%2C_wrong
