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Once again, state legislators have done what is popular instead of what is necessary — and that’s one big reason California’s infrastructure is in such sorry shape. That reminder was driven home this week in a discussion about levees and flood protection. Flood experts gathered in Sacramento on Monday to mark the beginning of flood preparedness week. In a press conference, the president of the Central Valley Flood Protection Board pleaded for the state to make the investment in flood protection. Bill Edgar says the state spends $30 million a year in repairs and maintenance, but that the state needs to spend $130 million a year.

A new option has entered the discussion of Delta water supplies: one cross-Delta tunnel instead of two. For now, California’s WaterFix proposal, pushed by Gov. Jerry Brown, is for two tunnels under-crossing the Delta for 35 miles, allowing up to 60 percent of Delta water exports to come from the main channel of Sacramento River. Implementing such a major project requires extraordinary political and financial support that so far is lacking.

The Trump administration said Wednesday that it will not support a massive water project proposed by California, the latest and most serious blow for Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to re-engineer the state’s water system by building two giant water tunnels. “The Trump administration did not fund the project and chose to not move forward with it,” Russell Newell, spokesman for the U.S. Interior Department, said in an email. Asked if that meant the Trump administration did not support California’s tunnels project, Newell said yes.

California needs to spend another $100 million a year to keep the state’s levee system sound, according to state flood control experts. At a press conference marking flood preparedness week Monday at a levee repair site near Sacramento, Bill Edgar, president of the Central Valley Flood Protection Board said the levees will need a $17 billion to $21 billion investment over the next 30 years to protect the seven million Californians at flood risk. That number includes $130 million a year annually for repairs and maintenance, up from the $30 million currently spent.