For the past year, there has been a lot of optimism surrounding the potential relief from the five-year drought that El Niño could bring to California. But though we have seen our rivers swell and our mountains capped with snow, the precipitation from El Niño is not enough to provide a long-term solution to California’s water crisis.

California’s water woes are not simply from a lack of rainfall and changes in the climate; they exist because of a fundamental lack of infrastructure that even in times of record rainfall is not sufficient for our state’s needs.

For some, the very idea of privatizing water — a substance essential to human life on this planet — is simply unthinkable. Clean water is the right of every person, they would argue.

But if the history of water management in the western states is any indication, treating water as the commodity it is would go a long way toward curbing waste, improving delivery and ensuring that thirsty, growing cities have enough water to sustain themselves in an era of ongoing drought.

 

The glassy, cold Carmel River surged through a little valley in the Santa Lucia Mountains, cascading in front of a half-dozen workers and observers one day last week down a series of rock outcroppings, as if its sinuous path had been designed by nature. Nature, of course, had nothing to do with it. The half-mile section of river, with steppingstones, pools and a tableau of freshly planted trees and bushes along the bank, flows through what was once the flooded plain of the San Clemente Dam, a Monterey County landmark for 94 years until it was removed last year.