"During the decade from 2003 to 2012 we had wet years of nearly 38 inches of rain and dry ones of less than 4 inches, but the average was still just under 14 inches, meaning there is no drought in the most populous region of the state."
The premise of the article is that there is no drought. That there's enough rainfall, that the problem is water management practices.
While the conclusion may have some validity, it starts from a bad premise that weakens its argument.
The title of the article assumes a drought. The sentence in question is arguing that there is enough water, using the word drought casually (I don't think the writer is arguing whether technically a drought exists).
The basic point is that if people collected rainwater instead of channeling it into the ocean they could have more than enough water. Don't argue at the margins and ignore the main point.
He very much is, you can also see later in the article:
Yes, to solve the "drought" in a few short years, there are two basic tasks that California needs to undertake.
The argument made in the earlier part is clearly intended to be on-the-level as he assumes at this point that the reader is convinced by it enough to not call the current once-in-a-millenium drought a drought anymore.
He's trying to engineer a solution to the drought. Engineering a solution to X does not imply X does not exist; that would be stupid.
But if we want to dwell on semantics -- a drought is defined as being an aberration from some norm. Given climate change, the drought in california isn't a "drought" but a change in norms -- this isn't a "once-in-a-millenium-drought" but, in fact, a new normal (didn't NOA just predict a multi-decade drought in California to be a virtual certainty in the next century?)
As an aside, it's been my experience that titles are often written not by the person who wrote the article, but by someone who is tasked with writing titles that are intended to attract attention, and not necessarily perfectly reflect the views of the author.
"During the decade from 2003 to 2012 we had wet years of nearly 38 inches of rain and dry ones of less than 4 inches, but the average was still just under 14 inches, meaning there is no drought in the most populous region of the state."
The premise of the article is that there is no drought. That there's enough rainfall, that the problem is water management practices.
While the conclusion may have some validity, it starts from a bad premise that weakens its argument.