California wants to store floodwaters underground. It's harder than it sounds

Pipes direct water into an irrigation project held by the University of California. After a few decades of not enough water California water officials are scrambling to catch as much of this year's floodwaters as they can. (Claire Harbage/NPR)

For much of the last few decades, when the sky didn't produce enough water for his cows and crops, Dino Giacomazzi — like most farmers in California's southern Central Valley — pumped it from the earth. Underground aquifers, vast bank accounts of stored water, were drained.

Now, after a historically wet winter, Giacomazzi and the state of California want to put some of that water back.