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The decision by one of the state’s major water players to opt out of California’s $17-billion replumbing project was a surprise to many. The reasons for it were not. California WaterFix’s financing plans have assumed that the Westlands Water District and other agricultural districts would cover a large funding gap that has hung for years over the proposal to build two massive tunnels under the center of the state’s waterworks.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California will be upgrading the geodetic deformation monitoring system at Diamond Valley Lake. The board voted Sept. 12 to approve a $748,353.67 procurement contract to Allen Instruments and Supplies, while also authorizing the upgrades, finding the project categorically exempt from California Environmental Quality Act review and appropriating $1,900,000 for all aspects of the project.

Water: it poses one challenge after the next in the 21st Century. It’s increasingly scarce, it’s increasingly dangerous as sea levels rise, and it’s increasingly changing the workforce. But one of its most vital functions is often overlooked: the fact that it’s a lynchpin for (relative) world peace. Without clear distinctions of who it belongs to and how to share it, the world would be thrown into chaos.

Public drinking water systems in California violated state and federal regulations more than 4,700 times in 2016. This database contains every violation from that year. Most of the violations occurred at small systems serving fewer than 300 people, but you might consume their water even if the district doesn’t serve your home. Many of the smallest systems serve non-residential users at schools, workplaces, campgrounds, parks or ski resorts. The violations are tracked by the California State Water Resources Control Board.

Earlier this week, California’s Westlands Water District, the largest agricultural water district in the U.S., voted not to participate in an ambitious, long-planned project to re-engineer the way water is shuttled across the Golden State. The Westlands decision is a setback for the project, a plan to route tunnels beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, but California state officials aren’t giving up on it just yet. Still, the ‘no’ vote from Westlands — the district says the plan “is not financially viable” — puts the future of the $17 billion project in doubt.