Bad Policy Behind "Water Shortage"

Only government could make water a rare commodity

There is no apparent drought of journalists with metaphors to define the so-called water crisis in the United States and California.  Every month, it seems, another new end-of-the-world water book comes out.

Cynthia Barnett is the author of the book, "Blue Revolution: Unmaking America's Water Crisis." In the Los Angeles Times, she recently wrote an op-ed, "America's Water Mirage."  After visiting Hoover Dam with her daughter, Barnett's sudden insight was, "[E]ven at Hoover Dam, the ugly truth about our water crisis is being ignored."

Barnett's article displayed a photograph of the "bathtub ring" around the rim of Lake Mead on the Colorado River showing evidence of "misuse of this precious resource."