California is in the fourth year of one of the worst droughts in the state’s history. California Gov. Jerry Brown has ordered cities to cut water use by 25 percent, but how do you achieve that?

One way would be to change the economics of water use, or in plainer terms, raise its price. But that’s harder to do than you might think, especially in California, the land of propositions.

Still, as of July 1, the price of water in Southern California is going up. The Metropolitan Water District, which brings water into Southern California from Northern California and the Colorado River, is charging penalties to utilities in the Los Angeles region that exceed their allotments. The cost of that extra water could be four times the current rate.