In a major and potentially fatal setback to Gov. Jerry Brown’s $17 billion plan to build two huge tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, America’s largest irrigation district voted Tuesday to pull out of the project. The board of Westlands Water District, based in Fresno, voted 7-1 following an hour of debate and discussion over the costs of the project, which is intended to make it easier to move water from north to south.

Just months after Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to shore up California’s water system with two giant tunnels won key approval from regulators, the $17 billion project is running into potential financial problems. The dozens of agencies that have expressed support for the delta tunnels as a way to ensure that they get more reliable water deliveries, from Silicon Valley to the Central Valley to Los Angeles, are supposed to produce financial commitments in coming weeks. Many, however, appear reluctant to sign on.

Immigration and housing dominated the headlines from Sacramento this year. But with little fanfare, state lawmakers working with Gov. Jerry Brown also approved a sweeping measure to provide $4.1 billion in new funding for parks and water projects — everything from building Bay Area hiking trails to expanding Lake Tahoe beaches to constructing new inner city parks in Los Angeles.

Repairs to the Oroville Dam spillway are on track for the Nov. 1 deadline, state Department of Water Resources representatives say, but work will be far from over then. The November deadline was set in the hopes of beating the start of the area’s typical rainy season. The spillway will be functional by then, able to pass flows of 100,000 cubic-feet per second, or cfs, according to DWR’s plans, but the structure will have a higher capacity when the redesign is complete.

Bringing more certainty to an unruly and unpredictable Colorado River system was a common theme among water managers speaking at the Colorado River District’s annual seminar on Friday, Sept. 15­­. Although the drought that has gripped much of the Colorado River basin for the past 16 years has eased up a bit, population growth and the long dry spell have pushed the river’s supplies to the limit, with every drop of water in the system now accounted for.