If California had taken the money they spent on the “bullet train to nowhere” and spent it for desalination plants all up and down the California coastline, they would be exporting water to the Colorado River Basin, and Lake Mead would be full.
Once up and running, a desalination plant based on the heat from a nuclear reactor would be generating purified water, potable and more than adequate for crop production purposes, for pennies per gallon. The nuclear reactors could also be generating electricity, more than enough for any future expansion of electrical demand in California, for generations to come.
The technology exists, The will to apply it, however, does not.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306261913007216
This is the way. Peak capacity triples, you have load shifting so you run your nuke flat out it’s most cost efficient point. The heat you need to preheat all that liquid air is used to freeze sea water which when frozen only fresh water freezes the brine drains away....oooooo that’s a bingo. When you melt the now fresh water ice you run nontoxic glycol through it at 33 degrees now you have district cooling too. Which is 70% of your energy demand in hot climates. So it’s win ,win win all kinds of winning. The technology is here today the political will is not.