But many of the solutions - from additional water storage to desalination plants - are too far in the future to help most Californians, who are bracing for the worst if the winter of 1991 comes up dry.
Oil would spoil desalination plants and oily water can't be used to cool power plant turbines, he said.
King Fahd inaugurated a major Red Sea desalination project that will daily pump 35 million gallons of water into Mecca, greatly increasing the kingdom's water supply for the annual pilgrimage.
He had no motor, no radio communications, no signal flares, no water desalination unit and no compass.
Jubail is the home of the world's largest desalination plant, which supplies 90% of the drinking water for Riyadh, the capital city.
However, if one of the two desalination plants there could be kept operating, some water could be available for continued production.
Mainly, Ionics sells its desalination plants and services to remote islands, or communities in Florida that need to desalt brackish groundwater.
The companies which participate in those areas are then marked down one side of a grid, while 30 products, such as fluoridation and desalination, are marked along the top. This categorisation - almost 1,000 groupings - is both a strength and a weakness.
Saudi officials yesterday scrambled to lay booms and position skimming vessels to protect major desalination plants, power plants, refineries and other industrial facilities.
Ionics, which also makes desalination systems, said contracts for major systems contributed to its second-quarter earnings and sales gains.
As initially proposed, a natural-gas fired electrical generation facility would supply power for the desalination process as well as the excess marketable power.