You are now in California and the U.S. category.

Crews are laying the last layer of concrete on the Oroville Dam spillway with one day until the state Department of Water Resources’ deadline to have the structure ready to pass flows of 100,000 cubic-feet per second, or cfs. Over the last week, Kiewit Corp. construction workers connected the lower and upper chutes and erected the walls. Now all that is left is to place a coating of roller-compacted concrete in the middle chute “that will provide a stronger wearing surface,” said Erin Mellon, the department’s assistant director of public affairs.

California’s ambitious plan to build two giant water tunnels under the West’s largest estuary has been deemed too expensive by some of the water utilities that would have to pay for it. As a result, attention is turning back to a cheaper option: One tunnel instead of two. On October 17, the board of directors of the Santa Clara Valley Water District unanimously rejected the $17 billion twin-tunnel project, known as WaterFix, and instead expressed support for a smaller, single-tunnel alternative. The district serves more than 1 million people in Silicon Valley.

Chris Clarke remembers a billboard on the side of highway 15 outside of Barstow, on the way to Las Vegas: “The Boredom Ends in 150 Miles.” Clarke, a former journalist who now works for the National Parks Conservation Association, could never understand it. What’s so interesting about a place filled with people and money and electric lights? You can find that anywhere.

The controversial water infrastructure proposal from California Governor Jerry Brown, billed as a solution to the state’s significant water challenges, has hit some snags in recent weeks. “In a landmark vote closely watched across California, Silicon Valley’s largest water agency on Tuesday rejected Gov. Jerry Brown’s $17 billion plan to build two giant tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta,” the San Jose Mercury News reported.

It’s only Halloween, but winter is on the way. Two storm systems moving out of the Gulf of Alaska are on track to bring the first substantial snow of the 2017-18 winter season to the Sierra Nevada, starting Friday, and widespread rainfall across the Bay Area over the weekend. Forecasters said Monday that gusty winds and 1 to 2 feet of snow are likely Saturday and Sunday along California’s main mountain passes, including Donner Pass near Lake Tahoe, Tioga Pass at Yosemite, Ebbetts Pass and Carson Pass, with perhaps a foot along the shoreline of Lake Tahoe this weekend.