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

Mary Kendall, the deputy federal inspector general for the U.S. Department of Interior, today issued a 42 page report detailing the misuse of the money and the recommendations made to the state and federal agencies to resolve the issue. “The audit says that California water districts — and not federal taxpayers — were supposed to bear the costs of the $16-billion water project,“ the Associated Press reported via the LA Times. “The inspector general says federal authorities also did not fully disclose to Congress or others that it was covering much of the cost of the project’s planning.”

Acrid yellow smoke clogs the skies of major Western U.S. cities, a human-caused fire in the Columbia River Gorge rains ash on Portland, Oregon, and a century-old backcountry chalet burns to the ground in Montana’s Glacier National Park. Wildfires are chewing across dried-out Western forests and grassland, putting 2017 on track to be among the worst fire seasons in a decade.

In terms of how to guarantee a good water supply for Southern California during all these weather changes, I wrote an article for CityWatch recently, “Life Without Water, Or Why the Delta Tunnel Is So Critical to LA.” On September 26 there is a key vote coming up at the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) as to whether the project will move forward with their approval.

Good habits die hard, it seems, after five years of epic drought – for most Californians, anyway. The historic dry spell from 2012 to 2016 prompted many state residents to reduce their water consumption, as did strict regulations imposed by state agencies and individual water districts. Whether they wanted to or not, urban Californians reduced their use of the state’s most precious resource by about a quarter.

Sites Reservoir has been talked about for decades, but now that project officials — and backed by 70 major allies — have formally submitted an application for state bond money, the question arises: Will this $5 billion project actually come to pass? The proposed surface reservoir would be located in Colusa County, but is competing with 11 other applicants for part of a $2.7 billion coffer of state money devoted to water storage projects.