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California has always had droughts, nothing is new about that.

In order to fight the regular droughts, California built a large reservoir system(40-60 years ago), and as a result had plenty of water to sustain them during drought conditions. This reservoir system would collect runoff from the Sierra Nevada mountain range, and store it for future use. In this way California collected plenty of water to sustain it when drought conditions occurred.

What changed? Environmentalists sued because they claimed that by diverting the runoff to reservoirs they were endangering the Delta Smelt. The courts ruled that they needed to redirect that water from going to the reservoirs, to go to the SF bay instead.

The California drought is a natural occurrence, and nothing out the ordinary, but the lack of water is completely man-made!