The eternal challenge

摘要

A century ago, William Mulholland scared up support in Los Angeles for an aqueduct to bring water from the Owens Valley. "If you don't get the water now, you'll never need it. The dead never get thirsty." Nowadays, the brutish water baron's bailiwick, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, merely "urges Los Angeles residents and businesses to take measures to conserve water during the hot weather." That familiar advice, issued on August 1st after "brief water outages" in the West San Fernando Valley, will not be the last appeal to Angelenos' doubtful sense of civic responsibility. Back in Mulholland's day, Los Angeles had 200,000 residents; now it has 3.8m. The state's population is due to rise from 36m residents to 48m by 2030; and so will its thirst for water—to fill swimming pools, wash cars, water lawns, build golf courses and keep orchards from reverting to deserts.