IIRC there's laws in CA that prevent excessive pricing of energy, water, etc. As I understand it true "surge" pricing is illegal. Yes, we have tiered consumption rates but obviously if you're truly affluent it's all lost in the noise.
A ton of electrical companies use a "time of use" billing. You get charged significantly more for the electricity you use during peak usage hours than you do for non-peak hours.
With that said, according to just about everything that I've read about the water issue in CA residential usage isn't the problem and even decent decreases would be a drop in the bucket.