I like the saying "Where there's smoke, there's fire" because it is applicable to so many things.  While much of the country is dealing with a drought and crop prices are rising, we have a longer term threat to our water system.  Local political analyst Bruce Balshone has captured the Hetch Hetchy story pretty well on his blog  at Examiner.com.  The essence of it for B'gamers is

San Mateo County residents pay to support the system as part of their water bills. In fact, at the moment, the San Francisco Water Department is undertaking a massive upgrade of the system which will total in the billions. The improvements will also advance the ability of water pipes to withstand earthquakes and build in redundancies to improve water security. Local residents are already financially supporting this effort in their water rates. But any policy decision regarding the future of Hetch Hetchy is out of the hands of Peninsula voters as control of the system remains exclusively in the hands of San Francisco.

The San Mateo County – SF relationship is a rocky one.  The Crystal Springs Golf course, fuel taxes at SFO, lengthening the runways, the hairbrained idea of a toll booth on 101 between here and there, and now water.  That's the tough part about relying on legislation from 1913 to cover growth that was never anticipated.  Kind of like the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) in B'game that was set too high before anyone could conceive of the desire for such big houses on such small lots.  At least the Hetch Hetchy water tastes delicious which is more than I can say for some of the on-going residential development in town.