But many people are so disconnected from nature, and ignorant of where their water comes from and the impacts of those water-gathering activities, that these horrifying questions might not sound unreasonable. In fact, the Great Lakes question, or some other silver-bullet sound-bite water solution like ocean desalination, always seems to come up in casual conversations about California's water problems. An overwhelming problem must require a big overwhelming solution. The ironic thing is, the very thing causing the problems--too much water demand, satisfied by imported water from far away, with destructive impacts on ecosystems in both the supply areas and the delivery areas--is the very solution that people want to try in order to solve the same problems. Another helping of expensive destruction, please. Bigger, more expensive dams, bigger canals, usually paid for by the taxpayer and often benefiting a few wealthy agribusiness interests, while ignoring the cause of the problem, with mitigation after mitigation enabling the problem to get supersized beyond the point of reversing course. Not to mention the farmers in the wetter areas of the country who could grow the same crops sustainably, but can't compete with California's water-subsidized unsustainable agriculture (that their tax dollars helped fund, until the ecological and groundwater disaster eventually puts a stop to it).
