There was the federal Central Valley Project and federal dams on the Colorado plus others like Shasta Dam in CA.
There was the State Water Project(1960), which was 14 billion in 2014 dollars.
In 2000 CA voters approved close to 6 billion. Another $8 billion in 2002. Another $11 billion in 2005.
In Nov 2014 voters approved another $7.5 billion. This really began in the 2009 state lege as $11 billion but they didn't have enough votes to pass it in 2010 so they didn't put it on the ballot. Same thing in 2012. So, in 2014, the lege cut it back to $7.5 billion and the voters approved it(Proposition 1).
The feds don't spend money like they used to. CA would like to raise the height of Shasta dam, but Congress will have to approve the money.
Everybody likes to get their information by reading political websites, but they need to be reading at the California Dept of Water Resources, California State Water Plan, California WaterFix.com, or about Proposition 1, or previous water bond votes. Or you might want to read the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and many many others.
I read all about Mulholland and was aware of the limited geographical area he was concerned about - mainly because it was within his area of responsibility. However, his efforts reached far beyond the confines of that locality.
If Californians as a whole were/are so prescient with respect to future sustainability, they’d have hunted down illegals and rabid liberal bureaucrats with a passion and removed them.