China Town in Idaho

Chinatown was a 1974 American neo-noir mystery film, directed by Roman Polanski starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. The film was inspired by the California Water Wars, a series of disputes over southern California water at the beginning of the 20th century, by which Los Angeles interests secured water rights in the Owens Valley. . In the movie a woman hires a private investigator to carry out surveillance on her husband, chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The private investigator tails the chief engineer and hears him publicly oppose the creation of a new reservoir then and shoots photographs of him with a young woman, which are published on the front page of the following day's paper. So why have a film history lesson in an ag report. Because that 1974 drama is being played out in Idaho. In the arid, high desert of Idaho, water has always been referred to as liquid gold. On the Boise River system that feeds the lush, green Treasure Valley of Idaho, a water war is unfolding between water rights holders and the state agency that manages the precious resource. State water managers want to start counting flood control water releases that flow down river and out-of-state without any beneficial use by water rights holders as part of the annual allotment that users are provided by law.