OP sounds like someone not from 'the west'. Water has always been political in the western US and will always be. Like, there is this little Rep.-Dem. divide out here, but when push comes to shove, the real divide is water rights. Hell
Chinatown was all about water. California's water wars [0] go back a long ways, and those struggles are emblematic of all western US states to some degree.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_water_wars