Dublin, California

ON a typical hard-hat tour of a major municipal construction project, city officials extol the venture's expansiveness and rave about how many citizens will benefit. But this city has taken a different approach to a nearly US$44 million recreational complex underway: Officials boast how small it is and how few people are expected to use it.

That is because Dublin is building a water park - in the middle of the worst drought in California's modern history.