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In a mere seven weeks, hundreds of thousands of California residents will face a major deadline affecting the health of their families and their communities. On Dec. 31, water deliveries that have been staving off ecological disaster at the Salton Sea for 15 years will come to a halt, leaving an uncertain future for the entire region. Here’s how we got here: In 2003, California struck a deal to divert a large amount of water from Imperial Valley farms to cities.

State officials are under fire for not keeping up with legal requirements to track waterways that are polluted or have other problems that affect using those waterways for activities including fishing and swimming. San Diego Coastkeeper is one of three clean water groups suing the state in an effort to get better water quality. Coastkeeper Matt O’Malley said the groups want to make sure the state complies with federal clean water rules by doing a better job of identifying and listing impaired waterways that don’t meet the federal guidelines.

The Fallbrook Public Utility District board of directors held a special board meeting the evening of Nov. 15 to provide background information regarding proposed water rate increases and to allow customers the opportunity to give their input regarding the rate hikes. FPUD officials were expecting a large turnout and they got it as more than 100 people crammed inside the FPUD board room. A sound system allowed those that weren’t able to get a spot inside the room to hear the meeting while sitting or standing in the courtyard.

Everyone knows the Los Angeles river. Even if it’s not part of your neighborhood, the concrete-lined channel is familiar worldwide, because nothing else in the movies or television better depicts “urban wasteland” than this drain. But soon this stark, 51-mile (82-km) waterway may symbolize something else: tough choices amid water scarcity. California’s historic five-year drought has prompted the Los Angeles region to look at using the river as a water supply – a role it has not served in over a century.

A coalition of non-profits is asking a superior court to reverse a state agency’s decision to greenlight a long-proposed, controversial desalination plant in Huntington Beach. In a lawsuit filed in Sacramento Friday, Nov. 17, the three coastal advocacy groups allege an inadequate environmental review was conducted on the impacts of building a desalination plant and that the State Lands Commission failed to examine the plant’s impacts on the ocean in its entirety.