Just a couple of hours drive east of Los Angeles lies the Imperial Valley, home to Palm Springs, some of the most productive agriculture on Earth, and the Salton Sea. Together with Los Angeles, this area uses over five million acre-feet (MAF) of water from the Colorado River every year, a river whose flow continues to trend downward due to the changing climate. For many years, California’s approach to the problem has been to seek comfort from its senior water rights and its outsized power compar...