You are now in California and the U.S. category.

All K-12 schools across the state now have the opportunity to get their water checked for lead by their water department. It’s a push by the State Water Resources Control Board to make sure all California schools have access to safe drinking water. “Everybody saw what happened back east. I think that’s where a lot of the concerns are, but we have a lot of things in place from preventing any of that from happening to us,” said Mike Mares, District Manager with California Water Services.

Despite a wet winter that has much of California emerging from drought, state officials are showing no sign that they’ll ease up on water regulations imposed on cities and towns over the past three years. Staffers at the State Water Resources Control Board sent a proposal Tuesday to the agency’s governing board recommending renewal of emergency drought mandates that have required urban suppliers to put specific quantities of water in reserve, or cut consumption, under the threat of fines.

The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors proclaimed a local state of emergency effective for 30 days on Tuesday in response to a spate of winter storms this month. Approving a state of emergency allows the county to seek reimbursement from state and federal governments for damage caused by the storms. With more storms expected to move into the area this week, staff said the county’s Emergency Operations Center remains activated.

After a week of being walloped by major storms that have dumped copious rain and snow on the state, California is finally emerging from a deep, years-long drought. Ski resorts in the Sierra Nevada mountains are flush with snow, while key reservoirs have filled back up. On Jan. 12, the U.S. Drought Monitor erased all drought in Northern California from the map and dialed back the severity over the southern half of the state.

Early last Monday morning, a friend of mine sent news that a tree we knew, a sequoia, had collapsed in a winter mountain storm. I was in New York, where two inches of hard snow sat on cars and tree branches that themselves looked like death. He was in Northern California, near the place where we grew up. No one is certain of the fallen tree’s age, but it is thought to have lived at least a thousand years. Any tribute I could give it would be fatuous; the tree was older than the language in which I can write.