“Drill down or desalinate. Pretty simple.”
Oh, would it only be so!
The problem with desalination is that it requires a lot of electrical power. Since California has exiled coal and nuclear successfully, and they don’t like transmission lines, they are left with two choices:
Do you want water or do you want lights? You can have either, but never both at the same time.
Nuclear gives you both. If they want to rule out nuclear, I guess they can die of thirst in the dark. F’em the dopes.