It absolutely is about storage capacity. If California built out a better system of reservoirs, it wouldn't need to take water from other states in the Colorado river basin.

crops are kind of important though

You can grow almonds elsewhere, they are not needed for daily life

CA, apparently, grows almonds for the entire United States, and 80% of the world's almonds, too.

Sure, I'm not saying they don't, but it isn't a critical crop for day to day life, biologically speaking. No one is going to die for not eating almonds.

Is it economically important? For sure.

Is it critical for living? No.

We don’t decide what to grow based on what someone decides is “critical for living.” We decide what to grow based on what sells for a decent margin above cost. Some countries in the Eastern Hemisphere tried the first way and it didn’t work out very well.

Sure - the problem is that the almond farmers are being incentivized to grow almonds by giving them a significantly below market cost. If the the costs reflected reality, almonds wouldn’t be profitable.

Municipal water users subsidize the growth of those almonds because of a water rights system that was imagined when California was mostly empty.

Agricultural users should be free to pay market rates for their water like everyone else. They will absolutely still be able to make a profit growing almonds since they basically own the market.

> We decide what to grow based on what sells for a decent margin above cost.

The problem, as others said, is that their cost is artificially low as they don't pay market rate for water.

They don’t have to be grown in the desert

Almonds aren’t grown in the desert, they’re grown in the Central Valley. And they’re grown there because before it’s incredibly fertile soil.