Beside the winding curves of the Colorado River, the Palo Verde Valley spreads out in a lush plain in the middle of the desert, a farming oasis filled with canals and fields of hay. For 12 years, the valley’s farmers have been participating in a program that pays them to leave some of their lands unplanted and fallow, helping to slake the thirst of Los Angeles and cities across Southern California. The arrangement has been widely praised as a model of how cities and farming areas can work together to stretch water supplies further while keeping agriculture alive.

Humboldt County recorded its third highest rainfall total in the 2016-17 water year since records first began 130 years ago, according to the National Weather Service Eureka. The downpour caused tens of millions of dollars in damage to local infrastructure and seemingly failed to produce the beneficial effects to fish and wildlife on the Klamath River that some were hoping for. Nearly 64 inches of rain were recorded at the weather service’s Woodley Island station from the start of the water year on Oct. 1, 2016, through Wednesday.

In 2015, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation on more than $1 billion in spending for water projects. Hundreds of millions of those dollars are allocated for long-term projects associated with flood control, desalination, water recycling, and conservation. One particular project currently in the water works is Southern California’s plan for desalination by turning 50 million gallons of the Pacific Ocean into potable water per day. The plant opened in December of 2015 as the first in the state to tap an ocean for drinking water. More than a dozen other plants in California are in the planning stages.