The solution is straightforward. Shut down agribusiness (don't call it farming--it's industrial scale) along the Colorado and you will have plenty of water for people and the ability to refill the reservoirs.
Some 1.6 million acres of almond trees in California. That produces just about 2.8 billion pounds of almonds. It takes around 1900 GALLONS of water to grow one pound of almonds. That works out to about 16 million acre feet of water per year. More than is used by people in Los Angeles.
When you take into account all the new things that they keep making out of almonds, everything from "milk" (I prefer the term nut juice) to cleaning supplies (specifically the shells are used in soaps, cutting back on water intense farm products during a 2 decade draught, rather than continuing to expand, makes sense
Price the water based on supply and demand and watch how much more efficient farmers get.
Ah, yes, have the government change the price and the free market will take care of everything. We need regulation and enforcement, not just a movement in decimal point and fine print for a few parties.
If you make them pay 0.1% of what residential customers pay, farms will go bancrupt. Because the volumes of water required are so enormous. You could improbe efficiency 2x or 3x, but ir won't matter financially
Thatswhy water desalination doesnt work for farming
Now, 1600gal × 0.0123$/gal × 0.001 is about 2 cents.
If farms were forced to pay my water rates, a pound of almonds would be $19.68 more expensive - but they would be paying at worst 10% of what I pay, because they wouldn't need potable water or urban plumbing.
I am going to ask that you provide sources for your claim, because it seems ridiculous.
Yourl are talking about the privlce going up 10x.
Even if its 10%, you are more than doubling the price at farm gate.
https://www.selinawamucii.com/insights/prices/united-states-...
In any case, doubling the price of almonds is exactly the kind of change I'd expect to see if water was charged fairly. It's one of the worst offenders - if farmers have built their business models around free water during a historic set of droughts, their business models are fundamentally unsustainable and it's the government's duty to fix the pricing sooner rather than later.
Is this an intentional or unintentional pun?
Alternatively, if you truly believe in the free market, start charging agribusinesses the same rate as residents for water use.
California is burning, sinking, drying up, and unaffordable. Your rivers are becoming creeks. Lakes dry up. Reservoirs drain to thirsty farms and cities. Water is bottled and sold from California to places with plenty of it. Alfalfa, almonds, and unauthorized weed farms are drinking up most of your water that isn't immediately drained into the ocean. Desalination plants aren't being built in time and have their attendant costs and ecological considerations. Snowmelt is reduced as snowcaps disappear due to global warming. Aquifers are drained after a century of drilling and wells and byzantine water rights and legal doctrines not updated much in a century. The aquifers are so drained that the ground is sinking above the empty cavities of the depleted aquifers. Wild salmon in California will most likely die out. The seas are rising and threatening to swallow up "The Valley" and introduce once-freshwater ecosystems to saltwater. Single-family zoning covers the majority of California. Millions of economic and climate refugees are going to be playing ping pong across the US trying to find that affordable, safe, pleasant life in another state in the American pipe dream, thereby straining the barely-there infrastructure of low tax, reduced government red states and causing local spikes in prices and forcing poor people further and further out. Good luck. . . There's so much work to be done, and I feel tired thinking about it. But, it needs to be done.