Rachel Becker / CalMatters

As four aging hydroelectric dams are demolished, tribes and communities along the Klamath River wait anxiously to see what the future holds. “Once a river is dammed, is it damned forever?” experts ask.

A discrimination complaint filed by Native American tribes and environmental justice groups alleges that California has failed to protect water quality in the Bay-Delta. The EPA is investigating.

Waste would undergo extensive treatment and testing before it’s piped directly to taps, providing a new, costly but renewable water supply. The state’s new draft rules are more than a decade in the making.

Truck manufacturers won’t file legal challenges over California’s controversial mandate, and in return, the state air board will relax some smog-fighting requirements.

Environmentalists and project proponents agree: Infrastructure bills crafted by legislators and Newsom are a good compromise. The package aims to speed up lawsuits for solar farms, reservoirs and other infrastructure, and relax protection of some species.

The legislation would expand California’s authority to fine water scofflaws who keep pumping. Even if fines had reached $10,000 a day, “I’m not so sure we wouldn’t have done it again,” one rancher says.

The Newsom administration unveiled a roadmap for bolstering the state water supply. But the plan — which has few details, distant deadlines and scant plans for agriculture — has been met with criticism.

The California Coastal Commission voted 8-to-2 despite the ecological risks to the Monterey Bay coast, high costs of the water and a divide between affluent and lower-income communities.

The penalty is the maximum the ranchers — who pumped Shasta River water for eight days — could face under state law. It amounts to about $50 per rancher, which is no deterrent, ranchers and officials agree.

Imperial Valley farmers and Southern California cities would get 9% less water from the Colorado River than the amount allocated under their senior rights.

After its driest three-year stretch on record, California braces for another year with below-average snow and rain. Conditions are shaping up to be a “recipe for drought.”

During one of the driest years on record, California legislators didn’t approve laws to protect depleted groundwater or boost water supplies.