California facing harsh reality of continuing drought

Los Angeles

FOR more than a century, California has been the state where people flocked for a better life - 425,000 square kilometres of mountains, farmland and coastline, shimmering with ambition and dreams, money and beauty. It was the cutting-edge symbol of possibility: Hollywood, Silicon Valley, aerospace, agriculture and vineyards.

But now a punishing drought - and the unprecedented measures the state announced to compel people to reduce water consumption - is forcing a reconsideration of whether the aspiration of untrammelled growth that has for so long been this state's driving engine has run against the limits of nature. The 25 per cent cut in water consumption …