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Exposure to lead at an early age has been linked to cognitive impairment and behavioral problems, which is why the stories about officials allegedly covering up excessive lead in the water supply of Flint, Michigan, became a national scandal. But an alarming 2016 Reuters investigation documenting children’s exposure to lead in 21 states, including California, never got the attention it deserved. In Flint, 5 percent of children met the Centers for Disease Control elevated lead exposure threshold of 5 micrograms per deciliter of blood, double the national average.

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 last few years of drought, and sometimes more.

As working families across the San Diego region struggle to make ends meet, the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has no such concerns. That’s because MWD can tax and raise rates at will — and it has done precisely that. Several steps removed from nearly 20 million residents it serves, MWD overcharged ratepayers $847 million more than the agency’s budgets said was needed from 2012-2015. To make matters worse, MWD overspent its budget by $1.2 billion from 2013-2016 on things like buying Bay-Delta islands ($175 million) and turf replacement ($420 million).

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.