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Make the desert bloom. This would be easier if there were a fairly large body of water nearby. Drilling deep, to pull up “fossil water” from deep aquifers, only exacerbates the problem, as they dry up and the desert returns. Applying “dryland” agriculture, taking a crop only once every two or three years, leaving the land fallow for the intervening period, with a grassland cover, is much more sustainable, and selection of crops that can grow and mature, producing a harvest of adequate proportions, and do it with a minimum of water, extends this out even further.

Or perhaps the north slope of the Himalayan Mountains can be tapped for a source of water, and with the introduction of holding dams, much of the spring runoff can be held until released to irrigate the land throughout the season. This may involve moving the water through viaducts for perhaps hundreds of miles, but with enough will and proper engineering, this can be done as it once was in the San Joaquin valley in California, a truly remarkable system that worked quite well until it became necessary to “preserve” the habitat of the snail darter in the San Francisco Bay estuary, But that was a decision by politicians, and not by engineers.

A bunch of my friends are farmers in the California Delta and were it not for the environmental concerns then the misnamed “Bay Delta Conservation Project” would be reality. The BDCP was simply the marketing package for the LA water tunnels...which are still in play.

The BDCP plan was for LA to seize 175,000 acres of farmland, dispossess 45,000 people of their homes at prices of typically 1% to 5% of market value, and then turn the California Delta into a salt water estuary.

All of this so LA real estate interests would be able to develop California City (where a coincidental HSR station is planned), and then to develop San Bernadino County. The cost to Northern California be damned.

So if a fish can stop LA from raping Northern California and turning it into a desert then God bless the fish!