Water is a necessity. Making it unaffordable literally is a death sentence. Those who would mass murder poor people rather then have a yellow lawn are morally reprehensible.
You could charge tiered rates where the quantities we're talking about are incredibly expensive, enough to discourage use, without affecting what households that use far less pay.
(Or, you could, if this was legal under California law)
That would always wind up bankrupting at least some poor soul caught unawares. I would only support that if there were clear warnings delivered to the specific user in question beforehand (not a blanket notice to everyone that they might, but to one person indicating that they will be charged if they don't change, because they have already gone into a draconian penalty tier), in a way that you were absolutely certain the person had received notice.
Forest for the trees my friend, forest for the trees.
If every water user paid market rate, including industrial and agriculture, the residential rate would likely be lower than what it is right now.
You fell into the same classism distraction trap designed to cause residential users to go at each other’s throats rather than address the whale users.
This is a straw man, no one is suggesting to stop growing food on irrigated farmland but to focus on efficient irrigation and grow things more suitable for the limited water, see the suggestions from the SNWA
