You have a good point. If California repeated like it did 15 years ago and made a "market" called the California Water Exchange, and required water-supply entit

You have a good point. If California repeated like it did 15 years ago and made a "market" called the California Water Exchange, and required water-supply entities to sell to separate aqueduct companies... and if the aqueduct companies were required to deliver water to farmers/consumers/industry at a government-fixed price ... with the supply available on a 1-day-in-advance contract basis only ... and if they made up special mandatory fees when water moved across state lines that people could exploit for fun and profit ... then yeah, that'd be pretty stupid and wouldn't solve anything. because the entire point of moving to a "market" structure is to make the price variable (and in the case of a drought, making water more expensive). Then everyone is financially incentivized to conserve and the high-water-seniority low-margin alfalfa farms could sell their water rights to the almond farmers who just want their expensive trees to survive until the drought ends.