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One thing the drought has brought to wider attention is the role of so-called atmospheric rivers in the state’s weather and water supply.

An atmospheric river is a narrow band of high-speed wind that sweeps across the Pacific Ocean, often dragging vast amounts of tropical moisture with it. Sometimes dubbed a “horizontal hurricane,” just a handful of these storms can bring California half of its annual rainfall every year. Indeed, an absence of very wet atmospheric rivers over the past few years is one reason California has experienced such a severe drought.

Atmospheric rivers are also responsible for the state’s worst flooding events.

A portion of the Delta is now owned by a powerful water agency from Los Angeles.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California said Monday that it has completed its purchase of five islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a $175-million deal that has aroused suspicion about a “water grab.”

Metropolitan announced the completion of the purchase in a two-paragraph memo to board members from the agency’s general counsel. The deal was finalized three days after the state Supreme Court turned aside legal efforts by San Joaquin County officials and others to block the acquisition.

It wasn’t just generous spring rains filling north-state reservoirs that had California’s urban water districts pushing back so hard against mandatory water cuts this year.

All those brown lawns and shorter showers have cost them millions in customer revenue.

As water use plummeted because of the statewide conservation orders implemented last summer, many water agencies found themselves struggling to cover operating costs. Less water use has meant lower monthly utility bills, and for most utilities, there has been no correlating decline in basic operating costs, such as payroll, debt obligations and maintenance of pipes and treatment plants.

The state Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal by Delta interests attempting to block the sale of roughly 20,000 acres of land to a Southern California water agency. The court’s decision appears to clear the way for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to finalize its controversial $175 million purchase. San Joaquin and Contra Costa counties, Delta farmers and environmentalists fought the deal and were able to delay it twice, but their last-ditch request for the Supreme Court to get involved did not succeed.

The state Supreme Court has cleared the way for Southern California’s powerful Metropolitan Water District to buy five islands at the epicenter of the delta’s water system, officials said Friday.

Some officials and environmentalists in Northern California had fought to halt the sale, worried about what the MWD planned to do with the land. The agency has said it might use some of the land to provide access for the construction of a proposed delta tunnel system, a controversial project some oppose amid California’s five-year drought.