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For engineer Christopher Neudeck, the levee reinforcement near Discovery Bay is just one small piece of a giant challenge left by an extraordinary winter. “If that levee were to fail, the lake, the golf course, the commercial area in here, that would all go under water” says Neudeck, pointing to a map of Discovery Bay in his Stockton office. The last time KPIX covered his team at work was mid-winter, repairing a delta levee that almost failed on Tyler Island. Now it’s late June, and a new risk is flowing along California’s levees. The state is experiencing what Neudeck calls a “very unusual year. The snowpack has been really prolonged.”

President Donald Trump’s nomination of a Bureau of Reclamation veteran to head the agency with primary responsibility on the Colorado River won the endorsement of U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton and a cautious reaction from U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, both Republicans. Brenda Burman is an excellent choice with a strong background in Western water issues, Tipton’s office said. Much of the river’s course in Colorado runs through Tipton’s 3rd Congressional district. “There is no question that Ms. Burman has significant expertise and history in Western water issues, particularly in the Colorado River Basin,” Gardner said in a statement.

The Golden State is making a strong lobbying push to try to win new federal loans for water infrastructure projects, according to data and documents reviewed by Bloomberg BNA. The EPA has received applications from water systems across the country for these loans in 2017, the first year the agency will dole them out. But California is head and shoulders above its peers in trying to persuade the agency to send the loans its way.

The National Republican Congressional Committee is going after five California Democrats for votes on a water issue. The online ads are identical except for one line tailored to target each Democrat: Reps. John Garamendi of Walnut Grove, Ami Bera of Elk Grove, Salud Carbajal of Santa Barbara, Raul Ruiz of Palm Desert and Scott Peters of San Diego. They specifically are about the Democrats voting against a bill to funnel dam permits through a single federal agency in an effort to speed up new water storage projects.

Inside a cavernous northern Utah warehouse, hydraulic engineers send water rushing down a replica of a dam built out of wood, concrete and steel — trying to pinpoint what repairs will work best at the tallest dam in the U.S for a spillway torn apart in February during heavy rains that triggered the evacuation of 200,000 people living downstream.