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Late last week, several hundred northern California farmers suddenly became tenants of an unlikely landlord. On July 15, after three months in legal limbo, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California became the proud owner of four rural islands and their water—300 miles north of its jurisdiction.

To anyone familiar with southern California’s history of by-any-means-necessary water rights acquisition, this might seem like yet another way for the southerners to drink the northerners’ milkshake.

California officials don’t have to pay property owners to access their land to conduct preliminary testing before deciding whether to move forward with a $15.7 billion plan to build two giant water tunnels to supply drinking water for cities and irrigation for farmers, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The landowners in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta had demanded payment for thousands of acres sought by the state for testing. The payments would have added millions of dollars to the cost of the tunnels project.

Oh, the berries of summer, and the culinary delights they provide! Strawberry shortcake, blackberry jam, raspberry trifle … and let’s not forget gooseberry pie, lingonberry pancakes, and my personal favorite, thimbleberry melba. With berry season in full swing, I must confess to typing this with purple-stained fingers. I suspect our enthusiasm for berries would be tempered, though, if we knew how much water they were slurping up — especially out in California, where long-lasting drought has made us all feel a lot guiltier about our almond-milk lattes.

In a win for the state, the California Supreme Court declared Thursday that the state has the right to go on private property for soil and environmental testing as part of a plan to divert fresh water under or around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta on its way to Central and Southern California.

The ruling reverses a 2-1 opinion by the 3rd District Court of Appeal holding that entry is not allowed unless the state first condemns and takes the property as its own, or there is an agreement between the state and the property owner.

California will not be able to take Arizona’s unused water in Lake Mead. That was the take home message in a letter from a federal water official to Sen. Jeff Flake on Wednesday. As the drought on the Colorado River has lingered on, Arizona has voluntarily foregone some of its water and left it in Lake Mead instead. By 2017, that will total more than 300,000 acre feet. The goal is to keep enough water in the reservoir to stave off much more severe cutbacks for Arizona in the next year or so.