California stormwater

With extensive flooding in California this winter, people are asking whether there is a way to capture some of the stormwater and use it to replenish the groundwater and reservoirs that are desperately low. While at first it sounds like an engineering problem, Politico presents it as a political or policy problem. After all, the state might have to fix the existing water infrastructure before it can add a newer water capture and movement system:

The pumps, aqueducts and reservoirs California relies on are “outdated and vulnerable to climate change” and limit the amount of water that can be stored during winter storms, acknowledged the director of the Department of Water Resources, Karla Nemeth.

 One of the local experts suggested to Politico that it was the start of a "new era" for California, by which it sounds like there is going to have to be an entirely new model for thinking about water.