New America Nyc

Gonna be a lot of irate citizens when they find out that they’re paying for water they’re not gonna get. — Jack Nicholson as J.J. “Jake” Gittes in Chinatown In 1994, a handful of California state officials met in secret with representatives from big agriculture to transform wide swaths of formerly arid land into some of the country's most fertile megafarms. Two decades later, amidst an historic drought, the Monterey Amendments have all but depleted the state's river waters, leaving homeowners with dry wells and agribusiness billionaires with skyrocketing profits. Water & Power: A California Heist, a new National Geographic documentary from Emmy Award-winning director Marina Zenovich, examines the little-known events in California's notorious history of water manipulation and the far-reaching implications for the thousands of people currently lacking access to safe drinking water. Playing like a real-life, modern-day Chinatown, Roman Polanski's 1974 film noir, the film lifts the lid on the chilling effect