In a win for a monumental water plan that would re-plumb the largest estuary on the West Coast, federal fisheries officials on Monday approved California’s decades-old delta tunnels project. The officials based their approval on a 1267-page biological opinion for the project prepared by Californian and federal officials. In a decision watched closely by proponent Gov. Jerry Brown and opposing environmental groups, federal regulators agreed that the $15.7-billion proposed makeover of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta could be completed without devastating impacts to native salmon and other endangered fish species.

A water manager who led the state’s emergency response to the erosion of the nation’s tallest dam says he’s retiring. Acting Director Bill Coyle made the announcement Friday after nearly a decade with the California Department of Water Resources. The 59-year-old had planned to retire in January, when Gov. Jerry Brown asked him to lead the department. The following month, the spillway at Oroville Dam crumbled when water overflowed during one of the state’s wettest winters on record. Nearly 200,000 residents downstream were ordered from home. His department is also shepherding plans to build a massive pair of $16 billion water tunnels.

After four months of comment representing thousands of hours of labor from advocates for the embattled estuary known as the California Delta, the Delta Stewardship Council voted 5-1 last week in favor of an amendment that endorses “dual conveyance” — the latest euphemism for a project to dig two of the largest water tunnels the world has ever seen. Touted by Gov. Edmund Brown Jr. as one of his legacy projects he hopes to leave to Californians, the tunnels would be an underground version of his voter-rejected Peripheral Canal of the 1980s.

The combination of the West Coast heat wave and spring’s snowfall in the Sierra has Lake Tahoe close to filling for the first time in over a decade. An influx of more than 12 billion gallons of water has poured into the lake this past week, leading to a four-inch rise in the water level since June 16, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Friday. The lake’s water level, which has a maximum legal limit of 6,229.1 feet, was measured at 6,228.84 feet Friday morning. Bruce Wilcox, the Governor’s Salton Sea task force appointee is one of the good guys.

Water agencies in Colorado are singing the praises of a bill passed Thursday in the U.S. House of Representatives that would streamline the permitting process for major water projects.H.B. 1654, introduced in April by Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., would make establish the federal Bureau of Reclamation as the lead agency for permitting water storage projects and coordinate the interests of all federal agencies in the permitting process. It also would coordinate information among federal, state and local governments to reduce redundant requirements in the process.