When God created the American West, to paraphrase Mark Twain, he provided plenty of whiskey to drink and just enough water to fight over. In Twain's day, the Forty-Niners feuded with fists and pistols over who could divert which Sierra streams to separate gold from gravel. In the teens and Roaring Twenties, thirsty young Los Angeles brashly laid claim to a snow-fed mountain river, piped it 230 miles south to the city and dispatched armed guards to protect the aqueduct from outraged locals wielding dynamite.
If things seem more placid today, that is only because the hired guns are lawyers and...
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