California made extraordinary progress on water policy in this severe drought year, largely under the guiding hand of Gov. Jerry Brown. The governor's master stroke was to initiate the conversation and then back away, allowing various interests — agribusiness, urban areas, environmentalists, people who favored building tunnels to move water from north to south, people who vigorously opposed them — to fight it out.
The process allowed every geographic, economic and political interest to put their positions (and emotions) on the table. Brown reentered the process over the summer to help drive two key achievements: consensus on a water bond to finance cleanup, storage and conservation projects, and legislation that for the first time puts the state on a path toward regulating use of diminishing groundwater. Those landmark actions won't make the rain fall, but they will help California manage future droughts and parcel out scarce water as wisely and equitably as possible.
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