Exposing Greed in the Water Business | Water & Power: A California Heist

[music playing]

(SINGING) God's gonna trouble the water.

"Water and Power-- A California Heist" is a feature-length documentary about the politics of water in California. California officials are putting mandatory restrictions on water use in place.

MARK ARAX: Water has become gold. In the midst of this drought, agriculture has recorded record crops. So the question becomes how they manage to do that.

MARINA ZENOVICH: The California aqueduct was set up by Governor Pat Brown, Jerry Brown's father.

REPORTER: A river 700 miles long. The largest project ever undertaken by an American state.

MARINA ZENOVICH: We have an artificial river running through this desert state. There are so many different layers in this world of water. There are a lot of manipulations behind the scenes that we know nothing about. And our film focuses on a series of meetings where a water bank ended up getting out of the hands of the state of California and into the hands of some private individuals.

[cash register]

There was nothing illegal about what they did, because most of what they do is legal because they write the rules. It's an expose of greed, basically. So I hope people will just kind of say, wow, this is happening and we need to band together and try to fix this.

[music playing]