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

In a significant step for the largest reservoir project in the Bay Area in 20 years, workers have finished building the spillway — a massive concrete channel as wide as eight lanes of freeway and a quarter mile long — at Calaveras Dam near the Alameda-Santa Clara county line.

The $810 million project to replace the old dam with a new, more earthquake-proof version has been beset by delays and cost overruns, due to the discovery of ancient landslides and other difficulties in the years since work began in 2011 that have made the project more complicated.

Predictions that La Nina conditions may deepen the drought in California this winter would be more alarming if the results of a Field poll released last week has been different.

The sometimes-ferocious rainstorms that hit California in March were likely the beginning of the end for El Nino, as the warm ocean system that produced a wet winter in many parts of the West is continuing to fade.

Any storms that remain on tap this spring will likely be mild and not contribute much to seasonal precipitation totals, experts say. “Now that we’re into the spring months, widespread rain events will become less and less likely as we transition into our ‘spring shower and thunderstorm’ season,” National Weather Service warning coordinator Michelle Mead said in an email.

Treating sewage and effluent currently discharging to the Pacific Ocean is an excellent idea for combating the drought, because millions gallons of clarified water is discharged annually to the Pacific Ocean from California and has been for some time. And I thought the oceans were rising because the ice caps were melting!

There were many students in the audience, who I believe were really excited about the prospect of addressing the drought. But no mention was made of all hurdles in our way by the federal, state and county governmental regulatory agencies.