The real problem with water...
...is that there's a growing sector in business (and its attendant parasites...er...lobbyists) that is trying to manufacture a 'problem' from which they can profit by selling their 'solution.' In most of the developed world where a sane public - and by extension a sane public policy - prevails there is no shortage of water. Just as California steals their water and power from surrounding states and expects those states to restrict the use of their own resources to slake the thirst of insatiable, unsustainable and insane growth in California, they are trying to foist these water and energy policies on the rest of the country. There is no energy shortage, for instance, in the rest of the country but to have more power in the grid that they can siphon off, the Cali. cartels want us to ban the reliable and cheap light bulb, for a no more reliable, less functional and more-expensive-by-magnitudes fluorescent bulb reminiscent of Escher's work at its most bizarre.
The key to the whole issue and the driving force behind the abhorrent concept that governments - whether local, state, or federal - should charge for any use of water, regardless of the source, is that there is no money to be made from free water.
