A lot of the fucked up water practices in the American West are because of legacy frontier water rights. Oregon doesn't allow collection of rainwater because of concern that it would fuck up how the watershed shakes out. Iirc, in California's Central Valley, where a staggering amount of produce is grown, water rights are attached to the land and are first come, first served -- the oldest parcel of land waters their shit, and then the second oldest, and so on until everything runs out.

I do recall correctly that in multiple years over the last 2 decades, landowners have made more money selling their water than they would have using that water to farm their land, and that without this legacy system, almonds would be such a water-expensive crop that they wouldn't be profitable. So. You know. Something something market value California almonds!