Tribes and allies form a coalition against the Delta tunnel

FEATURED STORY: Southern and Central California water districts say they need the Delta Conveyance Project to withstand drought and climate change, but opponents say it will drain vulnerable ecosystems.

“Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over.”

This quip of murky origin remains relevant, albeit overquoted when water issues arise in California. Perhaps it’s time for a new adage, one that captures the paradox of living here: The problem is scarcity, but also abundance.

Growing up in the Sierra Nevada foothills meant access to an apparent wealth of fresh water in our reservoirs, rivers, wells and snowpack. So there was a dissonance that arose when we were told to let our lawns go brown during a drought. Locals lamented that there would be no such shortage in our mountainous region if lowland cities like San Francisco weren’t siphoning off snowmelt.

When I began working for the local paper, my first assignment was covering rate increases for the county’s biggest water district, a beat I assumed would be boring. It wasn’t. Beyond the vitriolic public hearings where board members were accused of collusion for personal gain, I was sucked into a world of anonymous whistleblowers, buried environmental studies and (alleged) hidden agendas. I must have been onto something, because I was summoned to a private meeting with some of the county’s highest-paid officials. They call that being in over your head.

There may still be remnants of covert water wars a la “Chinatown,” but the biggest battles are unfolding on the public stage. The latest is the Delta tunnel project — another chapter in the effort to reconcile scarcity with abundance in the most populous and geographically diverse state.

– Dakota Morlan, managing editor

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Recommendations From Our Staff

Judy: The death of Rev. Jesse Jackson brought back a significant memory in my decades-long reporting career. When I was working at The Associated Press in Los Angeles, the bureau got a call from New York that they needed a reporter to follow Jackson 24/7 during his first presidential run because he was getting death threats. They tasked me with the assignment. As I trailed him around various campaign stops in LA, then on to Bakersfield, I never took my eyes off him during 16-hour days. He was a tireless, commanding presence who gave inspirational speeches wherever he went.

Jennifer: Noir films from the 1940s are one of my favorite genres, so I was excited to see a “Nordic Noir” category on the Criterion Channel (which I still think is the best bang-for-your-buck streaming service for film fans). I recently watched the 1949 film “Death Is a Caress” by groundbreaking female director Edith Calmar and found it even better than your average noir for one key reason: Most American noir films were made after the Hays Code, which regulated moral codes in Hollywood films and strongly encouraged happy endings, so the dark and gritty atmospheres these films try to create never feel fully realized. In this Norwegian film, the characters are every bit as messy and morally flawed as they ought to be.

Odds and Ends

Our February issue is an ode to the night workers who keep our city running. Inside, you’ll find a photo essay chronicling their work, along with reporting on the Delta tunnel project, AI in schools and more. Read it now on your computer, phone or tablet.

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