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Here's a few problems here:
1) These water rights don't hinge on the word "irrevocable," as that was of my choosing while writing for a lay audience. These rights have been litigated either directly or indirectly for the past 300-ish years since their establishment under Spanish and Mexican law.
2) Irrevocable as a word is just that...a word. The facts and merits of a case will always come into play.
But try to put an insurance payout into an irrevocable trust and tell me what happens when you try to revoke it in 40 years.
Pretty sure you'd get laughed out of court trying to invoke a mulligan.
3) Severe droughts have happened before, and the property rights of the successor cities have been well established.
Your conjecture is pure speculation not rooted in any historic case law, but it's an interesting opinion none the less.
Upstream stakeholders would not get judicial relief.
Theoretically, even if we entertain the idea that there's a legislative solution that will withstand Calif. Supreme Court scrutiny, you're forgetting the fact that 2/3 of the State's population lives south of the Grapevine.
Why do you think Northern California is politically powerless with respect to the transfers of water that occur?
The solution is usually killing such projects on environmental review...the problem is, and has been proven in court earlier this year (same case as above), these rights predate the California EPA/state government and are therefore not subject to them.
You'd end up running into the sticky area of property rights which, thankfully so, are strong in the United States (life, liberty, property).
Put another way: Los Angeles and San Diego, please turn off the lights on your way out. You'll be the last ones left if all the water goes dry.
