I'm in a water district that includes a large, private golf course.
They purchase cheaper reclaimed water, not available for home yards.
I sprinkle my dirt to stop it blowing.

Read Water Quality Control Policy for Recycled Water but...

The drought never ended but mandatory conservation did. I could grow rice in my backyard, if I could afford it.

desalination plants as well?

The process is currently expensive and leaves a large carbon footprint, though one would hope technology can soon solve or mitigate these issues.

Conservation (as noted upthread), increased storage capacities, consumer incentives, and best farming practices (including payments to farmers to NOT grow water-wasting crops) are responses that come to mind.

... even with supplemental wind and solar power.

Burning fossil fuels got us into this mess, burning more fossil fuels is not going to get us out of it.

When you find yourself stuck in a hole, stop digging.

We've probably worked ourselves into a corner where nuclear powered desalinization plants are the only way forward.

That will require the construction of nuclear power plants that are inherently safe and the training of impeccably honest and competent people to build and run them.

Welcome to the twenty-first century where science matters.

Urban users can generally afford desalinated water for interior use but maybe not for exterior landscaping or swimming pools.

It costs a penny to flush a toilet with desalinated water. The energy costs for a hot shower are at least four or five times greater than the cost of desalinated water, so the water cost is negligible.

Most farmers in arid environments couldn't afford to water their crops with desalinated water directly, but maybe by an accounting sleight-of-hand they could persist using water reclaimed from urban areas.

Many of the farms where I live use reclaimed water from the purple pipes.

... into near-potable water that's used to water crops, and potable water that used to recharge local aquifers.

Secondary effluent is treated with ozone to destroy microorganisms and break down most contaminants, goes through a 0.1 micron membrane filtration process, and then reverse osmosis. The final water stream is treated with ultraviolet light and hydrogen peroxide.

Cities throughout the arid Southwestern U.S.A. could be doing this. It's not an impossible dream, such systems are installed and running in many places throughout the world.

I agree with you. A lot can go wrong when sewage treatment is privatized. Here's a horror story from England:

UK Water Companies Pour Shit Into The Sea...

Most plastic bottles and containers (including grocery clamshells) aren't recyclable. And even if they were, what to do with the recycled plastic? No one wants it. And in the mean time, the oil companies are investing heavily in producing plastic so that when the inevitable happens and we use more electric than fossil fuels, they will still be able to wreck the planet to make profits.

I agree that water recycling operations must be run and owned by the public. Good on Newsom for being so forward thinking on this issue. Just don't compare it to plastic recycling which is a scam (I know that's in the article, not the poster).