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Fresh Sierra mountain snowmelt would make a better drink of water for rural Tulare County folk who currently rely on wells tainted by fertilizers, leaky septic systems and decades-old pesticide residues. Nobody argues with that here in California’s San Joaquin Valley. The problem is obtaining even a tiny fraction of the average 1.7 million acre-feet of Kings River snowmelt that heads mostly to farm fields each year. Even after securing the water, millions of dollars would be needed for a treatment plant, which is required for surface water.

State water resources officials and federal regulators caused the failure of the Oroville Dam spillway in February by ignoring long-established guidelines and neglecting their duty to manage risks and detect flaws, a scathing report by a Berkeley engineering expert concluded Thursday. Robert Bea, a professor emeritus of engineering at UC Berkeley, said in his analysis of the causes of the spillway failure at the nation’s tallest dam that the “progressive deterioration” of the chute could have been prevented if proper procedures had been followed.

The Sacramento Bee reported this week that the Board of Directors of the Westlands Water District were skeptical of paying for the Delta tunnels project (WaterFix).  This shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that prior analyses have shown that the project is not cost-effective, particularly for agricultural water users. But after digging into the presentation by Goldman Sachs to the Board of Directors of Westlands, it appears that the cost numbers for WaterFix are likely to be significantly higher than what Goldman Sachs presented.