The real problem here is that potable water is a precious commodity, it accounts for roughly 4% of all water on earth. California’s growing region and population centers are basically desert, and to make them into the growing region they are requires water. In California, most of the water depends on the snowpack in the sierra mountains, when it melts in the spring it replenishes the water sources California uses. This year, the snowpack was 6% of normal (not down 6%, 6% of normal), in large part because while the northeast was freezing, california was having record heat waves and therefore the snow that normally would fall, didn’t (Alaska likewise was having another incredibly warm winter, it was warmer in Alaska in many places than NJ for much of the winter, and they likewise had diminished snowfall, they moved the Iditarod for it)…
Leaving out climate change, the real problem is water is getting to be an issue, not just in California, but globally. Before it went under (thankfully), Enron was trying to literally corner a huge market in water, so they could make a killing, it tells you how scarce a resource potable water is. With populations exploding in areas with marginal water, it is a problem. California has been on the edge with water for a long time, the movie “Chinatown” was a work of fiction, but it was based in fact. Tensions rise all over the place with water, whether it is cattlemen and their need for water, water being diverted from the Colorado and other western rivers for agriculture, or to supply growing cities. Many years ago, back in the 1960’s, my dad had a job offer in the Denver area (might have been Continental airlines), but one of the reasons they didn’t go there was Denver at the time had real problems with water shortages. The problem is that use has been going up, but instead of doing long term planning, or finding ways to recycle water, use it more efficiently and find new sources, basically it is the typical story, reacting to problems, not fixing them.
The conservative position can be seen from that oracle of wisdom Carly Fiorentina. who of course immediately blamed liberals and environmentalists, that new dams and reservoirs would solve the problem, that it is all ‘their’ fault (leaving out that the California state DEP and the various water boards have said that with the drough california has been facing, all that would have done is meant they had a lot more reservoirs even more bone dry, that the problem was there was no rain or snow to fill the present reservoirs, let alone any new ones built). Conservatives like her will claim that wetlands don’t matter, that if it comes down to nature versus agriculture and business that nature has to lose, but what of course they leave out is if you do what they want, the cycle of drought might become much worse.
Then you have the other side, those who basically say we shouldn’t be using water, we should all be vegetarians (since livestock uses a lot of water, but leaving out of course that vegetables require water to be grown), that we should be living with rationed water, not taking showers and so forth (I am exaggerating here, but you get the point). Expecting people to live like ascetics or a modern society to function with severely reduced water is just as idiotic as the ‘anything goes’ when it revolves around water and nature be damned…
This issue is something that people kept kicking to the future, and the thin line has been crossed (and it isn’t just California). We have been building in places like Arizona and California and other desert-like places, population has been increasing and no one has been asking how to support this growth, the use of water has increased in some ways, especially in places where rainfall once supplanted irrigation and now doesn’t, and water was treated like a necessary evil you pretend doesn’t exist. Part of the problem is we have a lot of people in this country who claim that planning is ‘communism’ or ‘socialism’ and call it a Stalin 5 year plan and worse, so we end up with ad hoc responses (see one Fiorentina, Carly above), rather than coming up with balanced, pragmatic solutions. The government hasn’t helped, either, subsidies to growers in the form of cheap water also meant they had no incentive to develop more water friendly ways to grow crops, while they have developed drought resistant crops, obviously having abundant water means more product grown/acre, rather than maybe finding better ways to irrigate and so forth, unless what I read is wrong, a lot of the irrigation methods used by the agricultural industry is wasteful, only a certain percent of the water they use is actually doing the irrigation they need. Likewise, maybe we should have been developing de-salinization methods that work, ocean water would be a lot less environmentally damaging if done right (assuming they don’t dump the products of the efforts, the salt and minerals, back into the sea, which some methods do).
Unfortunately, like with many things, it is true that only when it becomes a crisis will people actually act. Conservation and better methods are part of the solution, finding ways to use natural sources is another (balancing environment versus need), and new sources of water all would play a role, but unless people get into the mindset this is not a temporary thing but a long term trend, it won’t happen, lot better to point fingers at each other, blame the other person, make political hay out of it, and then have an excuse to do nothing since “the other side won’t budge”, rather than look in the mirror and say “I have seen the enemy, and the enemy is us”