Deciding how to give people water to drink and grow food — and to do so without damaging the state’s economy or the environment — shouldn’t have been this hard. For the last dozen years and more, California has been entangled in heated debate over updating the state’s water system. But now we’re closing in on a resolution to that question. That, in turn, opens the way to considering future water policy in a very different political landscape.

Work to strengthen Oroville Dam, shore up downstream levees and other types of flood-prevention projects would be eligible for fast-tracked state approval under new California legislation lawmakers will consider when they return from summer recess next month. The measure by state Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, whose district suffered heavy flood damage in February, would require state agencies to speed up permit processing and approval for certain types of flood-control projects. Current law already allows authorities to exempt or delay permit requirements during emergencies. Yet other high-priority projects still have to go through the normal permitting process.

A project that might make much of the Sacramento River vanish into three giant holes in the ground will not jeopardize the waterway’s ailing salmon and smelt populations, according to new analyses from the federal government. The Delta Tunnels – which would be 35 miles long, cost at least $15 billion to build and be capable of sending much of the state’s biggest river to farmers and urban users – received a stubby thumbs-up from the Trump administration on June 26.

The deadline is Aug. 14 to apply for water storage funding from the Proposition 1 bond measure voters approved in 2014, and while the folks working to build Sites Reservoir will be applying, they don’t need the money. Enough water agencies have agreed to invest in the reservoir near Maxwell that it can be built without taxpayer funds, according to Sites Project Authority General Manager Jim Watson. Twenty-eight agencies have signed on to support the construction in exchange for a share of the water that would be delivered from the lake, according to the authority’s website.