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The Legislative Analyst’s Office has just published the following report: Managing Floods in California. Recent months have highlighted how quickly statewide concerns can turn from the devastating impacts of too little water during a prolonged drought, to the comparably destructive effects of too much water and resulting floods. Flood management is a complicated and expensive undertaking in California, given the state’s size, its extensive and aging infrastructure, the number of agencies involved, and the magnitude of its flood risk.

Here’s a cold, wet reality: The more water in California’s reservoirs, the less urgency there is to build new ocean-water desalination plants that became a major talking point during the state’s long, parched years of drought, an ultra-dry period some folks insist has still not ended despite months of heavy rains. Those record or near-record rains have replenished everything reservoirs lost over the past few years of drought, and sometimes more.

Local civic and business leaders have launched a “Stop the Spending” campaign when it comes to water rates. The San Diego County Water Authority says San Diegans are being overcharged for water. The agency is calling on one of its main suppliers – the Metropolitan Water District – to stop unnecessary water rate increases. “This organization in Los Angeles is spending $1.2 billion dollars on unnecessary things that we, as rate payers in San Diego, are having to pay part of,” said Jim Madaffer, the San Diego County Water Authority Vice Chair.

The San Diego County Water Authority says customers are being overcharged for water and it’s blaming one of its main suppliers. Water is a resource we can’t live without, but does that make it priceless? The San Diego County Water Authority says no and we’re overpaying for it.The water authority says the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California or MWD is the problem.

The San Diego County Water Authority lowered the level of Lake Hodges Tuesday as another big winter storm approached San Diego. The reservoir, which had been filled to within four feet of capacity, was lowered at the request of the City of San Diego, which owns the facilility. Some 7,500 acre-feet of water was pumped to the nearby Olivenhain Reservoir, allowing Lake Hodges to capture runoff from the storm forecast to begin Tuesday night and last into Thursday