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For the past two years we’ve covered water issues throughout California. With this focus we strove to bring a new kind of journalistic rigor and depth to the coverage of the state’s drought, floods, environmental issues, innovation and more. We can’t thank this community enough and we are excited to let you know that we are expanding our coverage. Beginning now, Water Deeply is bringing that same rigor and depth of coverage to water issues across the American West. Water doesn’t obey state lines, and neither should its coverage.

America’s tallest dam was built from earth, stone and concrete – and the towering ambition of Gov. Pat Brown. Sixty years before a crisis at Oroville Dam sent thousands fleeing for their lives in February, the late governor brought an almost evangelical zeal to erecting the structure that would hold back the Feather River to deliver water to the parched southern half of the state. Hundreds of pages of state archives, oral history interviews and other documents reveal a portrait of a man hell-bent on building Oroville and the rest of the State Water Project.

While the levees in the Delta are currently holding, heavy rains accompanied by increased temperatures in the spring and early summer could cause further damage. Over the winter, there were numerous levee breaks and breaches throughout the system. This year’s record-breaking precipitation levels have caused millions of dollars in damages in the lower basins of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley and Delta.

On behalf of their constituents whose lives and properties are continuously impacted by potential flooding, Senators Jim Nielsen (R-Tehama), Cathleen Galgiani (D-Stockton), Bill Dodd (D-Napa) and Dr. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) requested $100 million for critical and serious levee repairs in the state budget. Following is an excerpt from their letter to Senator Bob Wieckowski, Chairman of the Senate Budget SubCommittee No.2: “The significant amount of rainfall received this year and the severe damage to the Oroville Dam spillways have caused substantial damage to flood control structures that need to be addressed as soon as possible.”

Last winter’s extreme storms notwithstanding, water remains scarce in California. Between climate change and ongoing growth, California can’t afford to squander a single gallon. Yet in Orange County, a project that could increase water supply by 50 million potable gallons daily has been awaiting approval since 1998. There are pros and cons aplenty to the $1 billion desalination plant proposed for Huntington Beach by Poseidon Water. And in the nearly 20 years during which state and local authorities mulled it, all have been masticated thoroughly.