The End of Cheap Water

Major water price increases and supply cuts are underway in southern California, both of which are long overdue. This part of the state is a desert, and yet too many people live there, and too many of them live their water consumption lives like they are somewhere with higher and much more predictable rainfall.

The end is here, or at least near. As one California water official put it today, “The era of cheap water is over”. Call it peak water, if you like, but the water calculus of California with respect to housing and economic development, long disconnected from reality, is finally on its way back to somewhere appropriate -- if mostly because there is no choice.