Will the slaughter never end?

I have a bunch of stuff to write for you, but I’ll warm up with a trivial gripe. I always dislike the term “water wars”.

This quick post links to the impressive NY Times article on the groundwater race to the bottom with the catchphrase “Water wars.”

Let’s examine the brutal armed conflicts in the article. The majority of the farmers rue that they have no legal remedy based on groundwater law and they can therefore do nothing but spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on drilling their own wells. Others have gone to the manager of their democratically run water district to try to negotiate shared solutions. Some of these warriors feel that the situation is so drastic that they are considering a legal remedy based on nuisance. These are people that might have the entire value of their ag land wiped out and there is nothing warlike about their behavior. Towns in the Central Valley have seen their drinking supplies eliminated by neighboring wells and no one has taken up arms.

Is it the alliteration? Are we stuck with this stupid phrase forever?