Late last week, several hundred northern California farmers suddenly became tenants of an unlikely landlord. On July 15, after three months in legal limbo, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California became the proud owner of four rural islands and their water—300 miles north of its jurisdiction.

To anyone familiar with southern California’s history of by-any-means-necessary water rights acquisition, this might seem like yet another way for the southerners to drink the northerners’ milkshake.