The words “California” and “crisis” seem to go together as the state bounds from one intractable problem to another. The recent spate of flood-level storms in Northern California brought attention to the Golden State’s ailing levees. It would never dawn on the state’s political leadership to invest in infrastructure improvements before near-catastrophic failures stressed levees to the breaking point. Nor would it occur to them to invest in water infrastructure. Such a problem had long been predicted, yet until recently the state didn’t move urgently to approve new desalination plants or improve infrastructure.

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