On 15-Feb-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

Ultimately, somebody has to pay the price of the water.

Yes, so what? Everybody has to pay for water, one way or another.

California's agricultural water usage is enormous. If agriculture
was cut in half, there would be enough water freed up to double
the population and industry in CA without any change in consumption
patterns. That would roughly double the state GDP while dropping
less than 2% of GDP in agricultural production. It seems there
are better ways of spreading the cost of water around.

Mike