Water wars in the West have existed since gold rush days. Mark Twain said it best: “Water is for fighting. Whiskey is for drinking.”

Storage dams, reservoirs, canals, ditches and tunnels have been built all over the West to serve agriculture, mining and domestic water supplies for nearly 175 years. The massive water systems in California were planned in the 1930s (6 million population ), built in the decades between 1940 (7 million ) and 1965 (population 18 million ). Most of the major projects were completed more than 50 years ago to serve a fraction of the 40 million population that exists today.