I've lived on the westside of LA for ~20 years, so one secret I like to let people in on: there's no water shortage. There's a literal ocean of it. I can see it right out my window.

And all that it takes to turn seawater into potable freshwater is energy.

We don't have a water problem. We have an energy problem.

For all of LA County, it would take 500–750 MW each year to use seawater for all our freshwater needs.

Or put another, with a single nuclear power plant, we would solve all LA's freshwater needs -- forever.

CA has droughts, but not water shortages. Most of the water goes to highly inefficient and low value farming.