California Water Policy Deadlock Deepens Regional Crisis

"Based on new limitations on importing water from the Colorado River and from Northern California through the Delta, Southern California must emphasize more stringent and intelligent conservation as well as improved management of local resources (particularly native groundwater and institutional arrangements)."

"...the drought that will visit Southern California in the summer of 2009 is unlike past drought predictions, which could be overcome by a month or so of winter storms. This time—even if we get a blessedly wet winter—Southern California will be unable to access a potentially fortuitous turn in the weather."

There is something else that’s different this time as well: there is a visible break-through in the long-term water standoff among environmentalists (who generally prefer more conservation to new projects), business interests (who generally assume-away water resource constraints on the economy), and water managers (who traditionally seek engineering solutions to water resource problems). Among these often-warring factions, there is an emerging consensus that the status quo is a hazard for everyone—an unacceptable state of affairs."