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The easing of California’s drought has boosted the state’s early spring hydropower generation to its highest level since 2011, helping it to recover from a 15-year low reached last year. But hydroelectricity production is not expected to improve much overall this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The West’s four-year drought desiccated many reservoirs in California, the nation’s fourth largest hydropower producer, reducing their ability to generate electricity and forcing the state to rely on other renewables and more fossil fuels for its power supply.

Another legal challenge has been filed seeking to block the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s $175 million purchase of five islands in the heart of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. This time, San Joaquin County and a group of Delta farmers allege that the pending sale represents a breach of contract.

Delta Wetlands Property, a subsidiary of Swiss financial services conglomerate Zurich Insurance Group, bought the islands 20 years ago with the aim of converting them into giant reservoirs that could store water in wet years and ship it to Southern California when supplies run low.

Matheny Tract sits deep in the bowl of California’s Central Valley, an area that’s been hit hard by the prolonged drought. Like the nearby community of East Porterville, Matheny is seeing wells run dry, but before East Porterville became famous as the town that dried up, it shared a different kind of water problem with Matheny—one that also affects hundreds of other small, mostly Latino communities in the area.

While the rest of California may still be struggling with drought, Del Norte County is not. And, that has some local officials questioning why the state wants to apply the same tighter water regulations here as elsewhere.

A new regulation requiring water diversion permit holders to monitor withdrawal beyond what they are currently doing — down to the acre-feet-per minute — is drawing fire from Del Norte County Supervisor Chris Howard and other stakeholders because new monitoring systems could cost thousands of dollars to install.