The rain and snow that have drenched California and much of the American West over the last few months — at least relative to some of the hellishly dry years we've gotten recently — are a blessing not just for water supplies, but for energy. Or maybe they're a curse . It depends on whom you ask. Much of the electricity powering our lights and refrigerators and cellphones comes from rivers, their once free-flowing waters backing up behind dams and trickling through hydropower turbines.
It's a federal agency that sells electricity from the massive Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River, and from dozens of other dams across the watershed. Its leaders know well that weather phenomena of all kinds are getting harder to predict with global warming. They also know well that having more water behind dams makes it easier to squeeze through tricky weather situations.