Wasn't it the great economist Milton Friedman who said, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"? Or was that someone else who said that?

In all seriousness, the way the west (and California in particular) price water defies logic. All this talk about senior and junior water rights doesn't make any sense: it only benefits the entrenched incumbents. A properly setup market would simply price out water uses whose utility was materially less than demand of the produced product.