They have known of this problem for YEARS and didn’t fix it because the state didn’t want to spend the money on it....they obviously thought that it would never rain again.
They thought that Man-Made Global Warming was the cause of the drought, so planning for the end of the drought meant that you were a Global Warming denier.
In California Government terms, that's akin to being a Christian fundamentalist, or not being in favor of homosexual marriage.