Keith Brackpool, British CEO of Cadiz Inc., tried to sell a deal in which he would store water from the Colorado River, during wet years, in a fresh water aquifer in the Mojave Desert which would then be pumped to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California in dry years. They already owned the desert land.
Opponents claimed there was no way to determine how much pumping from the aquifer would be too much, drying up springs and wells.
He was smart enough to give a quarter million dollars to Gray Davis but the deal soured when he couldn't win over Dianne Feinstein who has made desert protection a hallmark of her career in the senate. The Water District narrowly voted down the proposal.
You know what they say out west - "Whiskey's for drinking, water's for fight'n."