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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.

When a coalition of California and federal agencies announced a new Delta Smelt Resiliency Strategy last week, the ambitious plan to save the region’s nearly extinct fish grabbed headlines.

But whether most, or even parts, of the comprehensive program can realistically put in place the changes needed to rescue this endangered native species is another question.

Climate change and population growth are rapidly increasing stress on our water systems, challenging their ability to deliver critical services. To respond to this, we need more than simple course adjustments in how we manage our water – we need entirely new paradigms that will improve resource efficiency and support more sustainable urban water systems.

Considerable work is being done to develop new visions for sustainable water infrastructure. Actualizing these visions, however, is another battle, one that requires increasing innovation in the urban water sector.

As the state slogs through its fifth year of drought, many water agencies are increasingly turning to alternative water sources to boost supplies — source like seawater, brackish groundwater and recycled wastewater.

But those need a lot of energy to treat. Now a local state senator wants to use California’s growing renewable energy supply to help meet that demand. “In the old days I remember we had this thing called Flex Your Power,” said state Senator Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys).