Winter storms have walloped California this year, and snowpack is【C1】_____up. But just a few years back, the state was wrung dry by a record-breaking drought. And more dry spells will【C2】_____come.

“I think everybody agrees that we need more water resources.” Adina Paytan, an oceanographer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She【C3】_____out that her home country, Israel, faced the same problem. “Israel had water issues for ever and ever. They don’t have water issues【C4】__because they【C5】_____pretty much 90 percent of water use to desalination.”

Ocean desalination hasn’t enjoyed as much【C6】_____in California due to its cost, and because of concerns that the plants would damage coastal ecosystems—both when seawater is【C7】__in, and when leftover super-salty brines are【C8】__. Now, writing in the journal Water, Paytan and her team have assessed the【C9】_____ impact of the nation’s largest plant: the Carlsbad Desalination Plant, north of San Diego.

Here’s the good news. Scuba dives revealed that the【C10】_____of starfish, snails, sea cucumbers and other creatures that live on the sandy ocean bottom offshore have not【C11】__since the plant opened in 2015. But the bad news? The plume of salty runoff stayed【C12】__much farther out than models predicted, rather than easily【C13】_____with closer seawater.

“When you have a pool of salty water that doesn’t mix, it【C14】_____oxygen from penetrating, so it can cause lower oxygen levels close to the【C15】_____and obviously, all the organisms that need oxygen are not going to be happy.”

Ecosystems offshore from the Carlsbad plant were already disturbed by cooling water【C16】_____from a power plant at the same site, she says, which could explain why the marine life was【C17】_____. But at more pristine sites, especially those rich in biodiversity like kelp forests, a salty plume might do more harm.

The state’s already planning more ocean desalination projects up and【C18】_____the coast. Paytan says her lesson is this: “There’s tons of water in the ocean. We can use it but we just have to do it【C19】__.” And the first step is to update our models of how salty wastewater behaves offshore in order to ensure that our【C20】_____ for drinking water doesn’t cause an ecological sea change.

What’s your earliest childhood memory? Can you remember learning to walk? Or talk? The first time you【C1】_____thunder or watched a television program? Adults seldom【C2】__events much earlier than the year or so before entering school, just as children younger than three or four【C3】_____retain any specific, personal experiences.

A variety of explanations have been【C4】_____by psychologists for this “childhood amnesia”. One argues that the hippocampus, the region of the brain which is responsible for forming memories, does not mature 【C5】__about the age of two. But the most popular theory【C6】__that, since adults do not think like children, they cannot【C7】__childhood memories. Adults think in words, and their life memories are like stories or【C8】_____ —one【C9】_____follows another —as in a novel or film. But when they search through their mental【C10】__for early childhood memories to add to this verbal life story, they don’t find any that fits the【C11】_____. It’s like trying to find a Chinese word in an English dictionary.

Now psychologist Annette Simms of the New York State University offers a new【C12】_____for childhood amnesia. She argues that there【C13】__aren’t any early childhood memories to recall. According to Dr. Simms, children need to learn to use【C14】__spoken description of their personal experiences in order to turn their own short-term, quickly【C15】__impressions of them into long-term memories. In other【C16】__, children have to talk about their experiences and hear others talk about【C17】__—Mother talking about the afternoon【C18】__looking for seashells at the beach or Dad asking them about their day at Ocean park. Without this【C19】_____ reinforcement, says Dr. Simms, children cannot form 20 memories of their personal experiences.