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Carrizo Plain National Monument is a place of extremes. The grassland, the largest of its kind in California, stretches across over 250,000 acres of unforgiving wilderness. Caliente Mountain and the Temblor range border the plain, while the San Andreas Fault cuts it down the middle. Surface fractures are visible across the dry landscape. The species that call home to the Carrizo Plain don’t just survive, but thrive in its acute conditions.

Knee-high tufts of grass dot the streets of Hardwick, a rural neighborhood with a few dozen homes hemmed in by vineyards and walnut and almond orchards in California’s agriculture-rich San Joaquin Valley. Nearby, the Kings River — swollen with rainwater and Sierra Nevada snowmelt — meanders through fields. Water is abundant in the river but it may not last. Despite winter storms that have turned much of California’s parched landscape to vibrant green, the drought has yet to loosen its grip on thousands of residents in the valley. Many people must still use water stored in large tanks in their yard to wash dishes and bathe.

Blowing past state officials’ financial projections, three construction contractors submitted bids for the Oroville Dam repairs that begin at $275 million, the Department of Water Resources said Saturday. DWR, in a brief announcement, said its engineers had estimated the repairs to the two damaged spillways would come in at $220 million. The low bid was $275.4 million from a subsidiary of Kiewit Corp. of Omaha, Neb.; followed by an affiliate of Barnard Construction Co. of Bozeman, Mont., at $277 million. The high bid was made by Oroville Dam Constructors, a joint venture between Sacramento’s Teichert Construction and Granite Construction of Watsonville, at $344.1 million.

The California Drought has created a race to the top. Amid all the social, economic and environmental havoc, there is a quiet competition underway to see who will emerge as the leader in water innovation. Which community will be drought-resilient? Who will provide their community with reliable, inexpensive water, even during a crisis? There is no silver bullet to becoming drought-resilient, but direct potable reuse provides communities with considerable security in an uncertain hydrologic future.