That's a wonderfully brave assertion of falsehood! Independence would be a problem for California. The unequal yoke that the Colorado River Compact provides n

That's a wonderfully brave assertion of falsehood! Independence would be a problem for California. The unequal yoke that the Colorado River Compact provides now already has other participating states ticked off at California for how much water and power is diverted to SoCal. That Compact, though, is an agreement among US states and the federal government. To include an independent California would require making a treaty subject to advice-and-consent of the the US Senate. If that wasn't in place and as there's been no likelihood that the Southern Nevada Water Authority would be willing to let the current Compact terms continue to give California the majority of Lake Mead's water, watching SoCal lose a major source of water let alone power is indeed in the cards. Staying in the union means California keeps its preferential terms under the Compact. Leaving means everything has to be renegotiated and since SoCal has been sucking Lake Mead and Lake Powell dry there's little interest by the upstreams in letting that continue.