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I don't think this article raises an actual issue (if it even exists).

If we take up the author's call to action in the title and introduction to "stop growing alfalfa" (presumably by outlawing it), then the corporations that grew alfalfa would obviously just find some other crop/product through which to effectively export water, albeit less efficiently, in which case the preexisting problems still exist but are even worse.

The real question is why these farmers/corporations are using their water to grow crops in the first place, when they could presumably be selling their water to consumers at much higher retail rates.

An immediately obvious answer would be that the costs of transporting/distributing this water from the source to the consumer is greater than the profit margin, in which case there isn't even a problem to begin with.

If the issue is regulation restricting corporations from selling/distributing their water to consumers, then it should be an obvious win for the politicians to fix: their corporate lobbyists get more money selling water at higher rates, while their voters get to buy water at cheaper rates. Either way, the article doesn't even mention any regulations at issue.