This is the new normal. Stop calling California’s ongoing water shortage a drought. It may seem counterintuitive, but that’s the best way to get regulators and consumers to rethink the value of water, says Will Sarni, director and practice leader of water strategy at Deloitte.

“As long as the public sector continues to refer to this as the drought, public policy is not going to change, because everyone is going to wait for a good rain,” he said at Fortune’s Brainstorm E conference on Tuesday in Carlsbad, Calif. “That’s not going to happen.”