Should a river have legal rights of its own? Should it be able to thrive, and even evolve naturally, without human interference? Those are the deep questions asked in a precedent-setting federal lawsuit filed in September in which the Colorado River, as an ecosystem, seeks federal legal rights to exist and to flourish. It is the first action of its kind in the United States. The plaintiff in the case is the Colorado River itself, with the organization Deep Green Resistance acting as a “next friend” on its behalf.

California needs to spend another $100 million a year to keep the state’s levee system sound, according to state flood control experts. At a press conference marking flood preparedness week Monday at a levee repair site near Sacramento, Bill Edgar, president of the Central Valley Flood Protection Board said the levees will need a $17 billion to $21 billion investment over the next 30 years to protect the seven million Californians at flood risk. That number includes $130 million a year annually for repairs and maintenance, up from the $30 million currently spent.

Is the Trump administration opposed to the Delta tunnels, Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to remake the troubled estuary and improve water deliveries to the southern half of the state? For a while Wednesday, it certainly looked that way. A top spokesman for the U.S. Interior Department, Russell Newell, told The Associated Press that “the Trump administration did not fund the project and chose to not move forward with it.”

For many homeowners in Sonoma and Napa counties, nothing could have been more welcome than the splashing of rain that fell on Northern California last Thursday – the first significant precipitation in about five months. The rain helped put an end to the fires burning in the area, which first ignited on October 8, and have wreaked hellish destruction on Santa Rosa and other communities. However, the recent rain – and the precipitation to come in the months ahead – will bring considerable environmental impacts of their own, especially to the waterways, and even water treatment plants, downstream of destroyed forests and incinerated neighborhoods.