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The winter of 2017 was a gift in many ways. Not only did it bring desperately needed water to California and end a statewide drought emergency, it highlighted the need to build more surface water storage projects like Temperance Flat on the San Joaquin River. California’s investment in water infrastructure has not kept up with the ever-growing demand for water supply. Many aging facilities don’t have the capacity necessary to keep up with our state’s population growth. Friant Dam and Millerton Lake are too small to capture runoff from the massive watershed above it.

The U.S. and Mexican governments may be sharply at odds on President Trump’s plan for a border wall, but when it comes to water – and the potential for a major shortage along the Colorado River – the two sides seem to be on the same page. Mexican and American officials are finalizing a water-sharing deal for the Colorado River, and a newly released summary of the accord’s key points shows negotiators have agreed on a cooperative approach geared toward boosting reservoir levels and trying to stave off a severe shortage.

Could California give a cash payout to the 188,000 residents who frantically evacuated in February’s Oroville Dam crisis? That’s the end goal of a lawsuit filed Friday in Butte County Superior Court by evacuees Francis Bechtel, Jacob Klein, Chantel Ramirez and Denise Johnson. Their suit seeking class-action status alleges that the state Department of Water Resources negligently allowed maintenance woes at the nation’s tallest dam to fester, according to their Los Angeles attorney, Patrick McNicholas.

It has become popular to lament how slowly California is embracing water markets. Proponents’ rhetoric can paint markets as an unambiguously better, or even as the only, solution to California’s water challenges. But faith in market efficiency needs to be tempered with a firm grasp of the greater physical and institutional context for water. Markets may be part of the solution, but only where implemented carefully. Take groundwater. In many areas, decades of unfettered pumping have depleted aquifers, resulting in dry wells, deteriorating water quality, depleted streams and infrastructure damage.