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It sounds like a nice, elegant compromise for a California water project swamped in uncertainty: If there isn’t enough money to build two Delta tunnels, why not build just one? Drastically downsizing Gov. Jerry Brown’s tunnels wouldn’t merely save money. It would also reduce the project’s footprint and make it more palatable to some of its critics. A coalition of environmental groups has endorsed a lone-tunnel approach.

When a top Interior Department official acknowledged recently that the Trump administration wouldn’t try to block removal of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River, he signaled a monumental victory for local Native American tribes, salmon fishermen and the national dam removal movement. Yet this development is less momentous than it would have been in 2015, when dam removal was just one component of a broad plan for the Klamath Basin, which straddles the California-Oregon border.

If you thought California’s water wars were bitter, just wait until you see our water data wars. Digital tools have expanded the ability of governments, companies and nonprofits to measure the uses of California water in detail, and thus build more water-efficient products, boost water conservation, and replace expensive and inefficient infrastructure. But the abundance of water data effectively makes every piece of land and every drop of water in California the subject of measurement – and conflict. The data also exposes the fragmentation and deficiencies of California’s system of water management.

Last week I attended a town hall meeting in Fresno where the topic was new dams and, more importantly, water in general. The five-member panel included two California assemblymen and one state senator, all from the San Joaquin Valley. The politicians were all on their game with answers and non-answers depending upon the questions.

The California Department of Water Resources announced Wednesday it has completed the first phase of its massive reconstruction of Oroville Dam’s shattered main spillway — just in time for the first significant rainfall of the season. The agency also announced that in the wake of the spillway’s failure last February — and several reports that found the concrete chute appeared to have been poorly designed, built and maintained — it will conduct a “comprehensive needs assessment” for the dam and its reservoir.