"When voters in Washington state and Colorado legalized possession and sale of recreational marijuana in 2012, federal officials were not happy.
They will be less happy Tuesday when pot officially goes on sale in Washington.
Though the Obama administration has pledged to respect state laws, it is quietly going in the opposite direction by cutting off water to the growers. The idea seems to be that if the administration cannot dry up the public support for legalization, it will just dry up the plants themselves.
....The use of water as a weapon is not new in the West, where "water wars" were once common among ranches and even states.
The federal government began in 1902 to take control over such waters with programs to build dams and waterways.
What began as a few dozen projects grew into a massive system, in which the federal government controlled a significant portion of the water in 17 states with the construction of more than 600 dams and reservoirs.
It is now the nation's largest water wholesale operation, supplying to more than 31 million people and one out of five farmers in the West.
It is not just water.
The government's 53 power plants annually provide more than 40 billion kilowatt hours that support millions of homes.
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