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What is the state doing to help with flooding along Cosumnes River? California Department of Water Resources says many of the levees are privately owned and the state doesn’t manage them. An official told us there hasn’t been any project improvements along the Cosumnes River in recent years because the land is privately owned not state owned. Department of Water Resources says it does provide assistance to fund projects for levee improvements as well as engineering help. An official said what the state has done is have a program available to help rather than go on private property.

To see how close California is to being drowned by its recent winter storms, just look to the small crowd of spectators and TV newscasters gathered yesterday on the northwest side of the state capital hoping to watch state water managers open the gates of the Sacramento Weir. The weir, something between a dam and a levee, lets dangerously high water spill over its top into a long, narrow, floodplain filled with rice paddies, grain fields, and other row crops.

California Gov. Jerry Brown, warning about the double-barreled fiscal risk posed by Republican-controlled Washington and an impending economic downturn, presented a $177.1 billion proposed budget Tuesday that assumes the state will take in billions of dollars less than lawmakers previously estimated. But the Democratic governor refrained from laying out how the state might react if it loses federal funding, saying it’s premature to predict how the Trump administration will act on climate change, illegal immigration and health care.

The San Diego County Water Authority and the City of San Diego are testing the waters on a pumped storage project that could help provide the region with up to 500 MW of clean energy, Windpower Engineering reports. The agency last week released a joint request for letters from electric utilities, developers, investors and energy consumers, to try and gauge interest in the project. Central to the proposal is an interconnection and pumping system between the existing San Vicente Reservoir and a new, smaller reservoir located uphill

The massive winter storm that began to strike Northern California and Nevada over the weekend has caused flooding and mudslides, and prompted evacuations across the region, with a second storm set to hit Monday evening. With California’s ongoing drought entering its sixth year, the massive rainfall is unusual and welcome, by some. The weather pattern driving the rain is a meteorological phenomenon known as a “pineapple express,” not to be confused with the Seth Rogen and Dave Franco comedy film of the same name.