I only skimmed it too, but it seemed to only concentrate on Cape Town, South Africa, and as such didn't seem to be relevant to other places at all: the problems

I only skimmed it too, but it seemed to only concentrate on Cape Town, South Africa, and as such didn't seem to be relevant to other places at all: the problems they described seemed to be local in nature only. As you and the other responder note, the water problems in the western US states are entirely different, and largely because of agriculture. However, even if you just focus on swimming pools and green lawns in the desert, in western US states like AZ and NV, those aren't the "elites"; it's the middle-class people wasting water on that stuff.