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Federal wildlife officials gave the first approval last week to Gov. Jerry Brown’s decade-old plan to re-engineer California’s water system by building twin tunnels to ship water around the delta to cities and farms. It’s a regrettable step in a long, costly and politically charged approval process with an uncertain outcome. It doesn’t make sense to spend $17 billion to move water instead of investing in water saving and reuse. Within 72 hours, environmental groups and fishing interests sued, saying the agencies are failing to protect native salmon and allowing the river to degrade further.

What’s next for the opponents of the governor’s proposed Delta water tunnels? Some people think the passing grade from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service findings that there would be “no jeopardy” in the project’s biological opinion for species was a huge setback. This finding is a major green light leading to the beginning of construction of the highly controversial three story high 40’ diameter twin tunnels that would go 150 feet underground for 35 miles from Hood to Tracy to drain much of the Sacramento River before it could flow into the California Delta.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to route much of California’s mightiest river into two massive tunnels poses new perils for salmon and other struggling native species, but could give them a couple of breaks as well, experts and project supporters and opponents say in the wake of two newly issued wildlife rulings on the $16 billion project.

Much has been written on the potential effects and adaptations for California’s water supply from climate warming, particularly from changes in snowpack accumulation and melting, sea-level rise and possible overall drying or wetting trends. But what about floods? In a paper in the journal San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science, we along with coauthors from the United States Army Corps of Engineers review much of the literature to date and examine how the Shasta, Oroville and New Bullards Bar reservoirs might adapt to floods in a warmer climate, including a climate that is either wetter or drier.

When it comes to California and climate change, the predictions are staggering: coastal airports besieged by floodwaters, entire beaches disappearing as sea levels rise. Another disturbing scenario is brewing inland, in the sleepy backwaters of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. It’s a threat to the Delta’s ecosystem that could swallow up a significant portion of California’s water supply. Scientists from government and academia say rising sea levels caused by climate change will bring more salt water into the Delta, the hub of California’s water-delivery network.