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

Nestled in the mountains of the quiet California town of Ojai is Matilija Dam, which has become a poster child of the national dam removal movement. At 168ft high, the dam towers above Matilija Creek. Since the dam’s construction in 1947, an estimated 8 million cubic yards of sediment have clogged Matilija reservoir, rendering it useless for water storage and flood control, while trapping sediment that would have flowed into the Ventura River and then fed Ventura’s coastline nearly 16 miles downstream.

The measure, called the “Gaining Responsibility on Water Act” or GROW Act, has already passed the US House, largely along party lines. Supporters, including many Central Valley Republicans and farmers, say it would cut the red tape that prevents dams and water storage projects from being built. While that might normally sit well with powerful Southern California water interests, this bill is unlikely to garner support from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. General Manager Jeffrey Kightlinger says the measure doesn’t strike the right balance between water supply and the environment.

Leaders in one Northern California ity want to tighten rules for water use despite the end of the state’s drought. People who live in Sacramento have been limited to watering two days a week since the drought started. City leaders are now looking into a plan to make that permanent. The new rules could be approved at a city council meeting Aug 15. Landscaped areas that are open to the public would be exempt from the rules. Those areas includes parks, sports fields and golf courses.

Six months ago, relentless winter storms dumped nearly 13 inches of rain in four days on the Sierra Foothills, tearing an enormous hole in the spillway at Oroville Dam, the nation’s highest, and leading to an unprecedented emergency that prompted the evacuation of 188,000 people from nearby towns. Today, what could have been ground zero for America’s worst dam disaster is now a hotbed of construction activity.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s cheerleading squad was in high-spirits recently with the latest news that his twin tunnels project in the Delta inched a step closer to reality. The state Department of Water Resources gave its approval to the tunnels by certifying the environmental reviews for the project. Really, what did you expect? The DWR answers to Brown and Brown wants to build those four-story tunnels to funnel north state water from the Sacramento River, under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, to farmers and cities in the south.