Does the state have a plan for the water crisis that keeps getting worse if it were to make it easier and easier for more and more people to settle down in it?
The majority of non-environmental water is used to grow cash crops in the central valley, like almonds, which take 1 gal/almond.
Overall, urban residents have far less impact on climate than exurban residents who drive around in SUVs. It is in the best interests of everyone on planet Earth to make our cities denser and more inviting [1, 2].
[0] - http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1108
[1] - http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/
[2] - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/23/city-dwe...
1. Unregulated water use that allows for production of export cash crops will continue
This could easily be fixed by regulating water use properly, such that farmers have economic incentive to grow crops that are less water intensive given that CA is not water rich.
2. Market prices of current export and current import crops will hold constant regardless of growth
That's not how markets work.
If there was a sudden surge in lettuce demand, farmers in Salinas would respond to increasing prices by switching some fields currently used for export crops to lettuce, which would be consumed locally.
This is aided by point (1) above, where we could push this shift with water regulations.
On the whole -- your concerns seem best addressed by sensible regulation of water in CA, which is a long term political problem. Opposing the farm lobby is well known third rail in the CA Leg.
Nativist population control programs are not the solution to a market failure of water distribution, however they might be implemented. Opposing housing construction is even a really poor way to implement a nativist population control program.
Moreover, current irrigation methods in the valley are not ideal for water conservation. Many farmers have water rights dating to the 19th century allowing nearly unfettered access to whatever water they can find, providing no economic incentive to invest in conservation infrastructure.
There is no Californian Malthusian crisis, just a story of poor resource management.
Do the almond growers receive subsidized water? I don't know how else the economics of this works out. (Unless the water used to grow almonds isn't up to the purity standards of drinking water, and they're counting on the tree to filter it...)
A gallon of tap water isn't, and a gallon of agricultural well water is even cheaper.
This [0] is a pretty good analysis of how California spends its water. One interesting point: instead of carefully installing low-flow fixtures and rationing showers and letting your lawn die, you could pay the california alfalfa industry about $2 to grow $2 less alfalfa for a year.
0: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/11/california-water-you-do...
Access to ground water is so unrestricted that the entire Central Valley is sinking! https://www.revealnews.org/article/california-is-sinking-and...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/13/food-water-footprin...
some highlights:
1 gallon of coffee - 1056 gallons of water
1 pound of chicken - 518 gallons
1 pound of beef - 1847 gallons
1 gallon of wine - 872 gallons
1 gallon of lentils - 704 gallons
Want to prevent the central valley sinking [1]? Maybe we should have less cows and pigs and selling a lot of the meat abroad.
[1] http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drough...