Australia also faced tough water restrictions — along with dying cattle, barren fields and monstrous wildfires that killed 173 people. For much of their history, many Californians have enjoyed abundant water, or were able to divert enough of it to turn deserts green, and lawyers make sure property rights remain paramount. From an Australian perspective, California's drought response has been "absolutely pathetic," says Daniel Connell, an environmental policy expert at The Australian National University. The government capped entitlements, canceled inactive licenses, bought back hundreds of billions of gallons from irrigators and strictly metered usage to make sure license holders use only their allocation. Nearly 4,000 so-called senior water rights holders who staked claims before 1914 or own acreage abutting a river or stream get priority. Revising the water-rights system is a thermo-nuclear issue in California," said John Laird, California's secretary for natural resources, but if water shortages go on, "almost everything has to be on the table. Thousands of gauges across Australia measure rainfall, authorities in each state and territory measure surface water at stream gauging stations, and underground water is monitored through a complex process involving the drilling of bores and controlled pumping tests. After voluntary cutbacks were ignored, Brown's administration mandated a statewide 25 percent cut in water use by cities and towns, and ordered more farmers to stop pumping from rivers and streams. In 1995, Sydney's water authority was ordered to slash per-capita demand by 35 percent by 2011, and it met that target by reducing pressure and leaks in pipes, boosting businesses' water efficiency, and offering low-cost, water-saving technologies in homes, such as dual-flush toilets, low-flow showerheads and rainwater tanks for gardens, toilets and laundry. Communities across California offer rebates on d