Yesterday the Los Angeles Times published a bi-partisan opinion piece from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senator Dianne Feinstein about the state's current water crisis and why voters should approve a massive bond ("loan" in normal language) to upgrade, repair and expand California's water infrastructure.

The op-ed, Turning the tide in the water crisis, catalogued the dreary symptoms associated with two years of sub-average rainfall:

California depends on water from three primary sources: The Sierra Nevada snowpack, the Colorado River and our existing water-storage system. Each of these sources faces unprecedented challenges.

The snowpack, which was measured at only 67% of normal in May, has become dangerously unreliable because of global warming. It is estimated that climate change will cause the state's snowpack to drop by 25% to 40% by 2050.

The Colorado River Basin just experienced an eight-year drought, and the amount of water that California is allowed to take from the river has dropped by 18% from 2003.

Reservoirs are dangerously low statewide. Lake Oroville, California's second-largest storage reservoir, will end this year with its lowest amount of water in more than 30 years. Shasta Reservoir, the state's largest, is at 48% of capacity.

What's even more "unprecedented" is the purposeful overpopulation of a bio-region where low rainfall and long droughts are a fact of life in the historical record, e.g. the Medieval megadrought of 400 years duration, from 900 to 1400.

California's current population of over 38 million is environmentally unsustainable, yet the government elites plan on ever more growth, with the unwilling taxpayer footing the bill.

We believe this is a balanced and comprehensive approach that will help meet the needs of a growing population — expected to reach 50 million in the next decade. It will help us bank more water in wet years for use in the dry years. And it will meet our common goal of a healthy environment and reliable water supply.

(Incidentally, the precise bill for this bond extravaganza is not mentioned in the LA Times pitch. For that, inquiring minds must search the internet to find the dollar amount: Schwarzenegger, Feinstein propose $9.3 billion water bond , San Diego Union Tribune, July 10, 2008.)

The situation wouldn't be so absurd if Mexifornia could cut back on the generous welcome mat for illegal aliens, like the continuing permissiveness when other states are cracking down, a city (San Francisco) that has advertised for foreigners to use its welfare services, in-state tuition for illegals, etc. ad nauseum.

Even Hollywood understands that "If you build it, they will come."

And yes, the billions of dollars for the water bond are indeed another immigration tax, because California would not need such extreme infrastructure expenditures if Washington-mandated overpopulation policies had not been acting as growth steroids.