maybe the fear

comes from back in the early 70s when southern Cal was having it's "water crisis" and there was talk that LA's demand would far outstrip it's source of water. There was talk of schemes like towing icebergs from antarctica and collecting the meltwater, building massive desalinization plants, and piping it down from the huge freshwater lakes of Canada. Of course the solution was to steal it from the Sierras (like SF does) and the Colorado River basin.