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With rivers roaring and more rain coming, California’s drought cops are wrestling with a complicated question: Should they keep patrolling the beat? A chorus of urban water districts Wednesday urged the State Water Resources Control Board, California’s chief drought regulator, to allow the state’s emergency conservation rules to expire. At a lengthy hearing in Sacramento, representatives of the water districts said the state board is losing credibility by insisting the drought still exists when residents can see how much conditions have eased.

Blue skies will give way to storm clouds, gusty winds and snow this week as storms arrive in Northern California. The three storms will not bring as much rain as last week’s series of storms, according to the National Weather Service, but additional runoff is expected to flow into the Sacramento River and other streams and creeks. In total, over the next seven days the North State could see 6 to 8 inches of rain.

As part of its commitment to water quality, California Water Service (Cal Water), the largest subsidiary of California Water Service Group ( NYSE : CWT ), announced today that it is finalizing plans to test for lead in water in schools within its service areas. The announcement follows the release of new guidelines for lead testing in schools by the State Water Resources Control Board’s Division of Drinking Water (DDW) earlier today.

After a decade of nearly continuous drought, a levee break – even in an inherently flood-prone place like San Joaquin County – seems a strange and disconcerting sight. County officials have reported two such breaks in recent days, including this one on White Slough northwest of Stockton. No damage to buildings has been reported, though officials on Tuesday were assessing the harm to agriculture. Water has also sloshed over the top of levees or seeped through them in certain areas.

After a half-decade of drought, California has been buffeted this winter by a series of powerful rain and snowstorms that dumped countless gallons of water on the state’s watersheds. Some of the deluge was captured in the form of mountain snows that will feed rivers and streams during the annual spring melt. But at lower elevations, it was rain, some retained in man-made reservoirs that had been seriously depleted, but most flowing swiftly to the Pacific Ocean.