Maybe I was naïve. Back in October 2014 I wrote a column in F&H promoting the passage of the Proposition 1 water bond on the November ballot chiefly because money in the bond would be dedicated to water storage, something desperately needed as California faced a drought. One of our readers commented under the article that I was naïve to believe that money would ever be spent for water storage, that dams were an anathema to the powers that be in Sacramento. More than three years after voters approved the bond the $2.7 billion set aside for water storage is still unspent.

About 92 percent of California is under some level of drought, according to a report released by the National Drought Migration Center on Thursday. That’s a three-fold increase from conditions just three months ago, when only 26 percent of the state was experiencing drought. The drought conditions are broken down into five categories, ranging from abnormally dry to exceptional drought. Right now, no part of California is being affected by extreme or exceptional drought, according to the report.

With the snowpack in California’s Sierr­a Nevada now at 20 percent of average – lower than at the same time three years ago, the driest year on record – Californians are girding for a repeat of drought conditions. Water scarcity seems likely to be a recurring part of our future. Legislators in Sacramento, therefore, would be remiss to delay the adoption of a group of bills that would place the state on a path to ensuring more sustainable water supplies.

On Wednesday, the Department of Water Resources provided an update on the construction of the Lake Oroville Spillways. According to DWR officials, current construction on the emergency spillway is underway, with the secant pile wall being 95 percent complete and is expected to be completed by March. The secant pile wall is being constructed 730 feet downhill of the emergency spillway, at depths of 35-65 feet.

With California facing another potential drought, legislators demanded Wednesday that a state agency release $2.7 billion in bond funding for dams, reservoirs and other water storage projects. Assembly Republican Leader Brian Dahle, pulling a child’s red wagon, arrived at a meeting of the California Water Commission with a stack of petitions with 4,000 signatures supporting the two largest reservoir projects seeking bond money: Sites Reservoir north of Sacramento and Temperance Flat in the San Joaquin Valley. “Farmers like myself are concerned about the shortage of water – we’re seeing another drought cycle,” he told the commission.