Obviously I'm talking about the transport of the water from where it naturally occurs to where people want to use it, not somehow creating it out of atoms.

Unfortunately the government sold it. Now of course they could buy it back ... That's unacceptable, apparently. Just taking it away, no compensation is what everyone seems to want.

And the price the current water holders want is apparently infinite because they claim the right to all the water that falls in perpetuity. We have removed rights to certain classes of objects before when managing other resources. If I recall correctly land deeds used to assume rights from heaven to hell but then air and mineral rights were carved off for the sake of commerce. We can do so again

Buy the land that has the rights attached? Everyone has their price but maybe the buyers just feel too entitled to have to pay.