Trump administration officials began releasing significant amounts of water from two dams in California’s Central Valley on Friday in a move that seemed intended to make a political point as President Trump continued to falsely blame the Los Angeles wildfires on water policies in the Democratic-run state.
The releases, as ordered, have sent water toward low-lying land in the Central Valley, and none of it will reach Southern California, water experts said. Nonetheless, President Trump said on Friday that the same action would have prevented the Los Angeles wildfires on the other side of mountain ranges over which that water has no way of traveling.
“Photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California,” President Trump posted on Friday on social media in an apparent reference to the dam releases. “Everybody should be happy about this long fought Victory! I only wish they listened to me six years ago — There would have been no fire!”
Experts expressed dismay on Friday that releasing so much water now served little use for farmers, who typically have higher irrigation needs in the spring and summer months when agricultural fields are abundant.
State and federal officials do release some water from dams before storms to make room for incoming flows, and moderate precipitation is expected in the region over the next 72 hours. But it is a delicately choreographed effort, and water managers usually try to release as little water as possible to ensure there will be enough supplies for farmers and residents later in the year. They also need to ensure that communities below the dams are not overwhelmed by water.
“I’ve never seen them do this, other than in a major flood,” said Robert Thayer, a supervisor in Kings County, which is downstream of the Tulare County dams.
The episode appeared to arise from an abrupt order by the Trump administration to “maximize” water supplies in California after the president made a series of spurious claims about the state’s water policies. The president’s social media post said that 1.6 billion gallons of water was being released in California on the first day; federal data showed on Friday that increased water releases from Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Lake Success would total roughly that amount by day’s end.
Since the fires began on Jan. 7, the president has charged, falsely, that Gov. Gavin Newsom of California could solve water shortages in Southern California with the turn of a valve if California were less concerned about endangered fish species. He has said incorrectly that California has access to great amounts of water from the Pacific Northwest and Canada, even though there is no pipeline that flows from the state’s northern neighbors.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly said this month that the fires could have been extinguished had the governor released more water from the north.
Gavin Newsom, Governor of California:
LIE – California’s smelt fish policy led to the Southern California wildfires
- This is an outlandish connection to make. The policy is not about water availability in Southern California.
- Broadly, there is no water shortage in Southern California right now, despite Trump’s claims that he would open some imaginary spigot.
- Orange County Water District, which supplies groundwater to the north half of the county, has enough supply to carry its 2.5 million customers through the worst of any potential droughts for 3 to 5 years.
- The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California also has an abundance, with a record 3.8 million acre-feet of water in storage. That’s enough water to supply 40 million people for a year.
LIE – California Ran Out of Water and Reservoirs Are Empty
Facts About Water Availability
PolitiFact: Fact-check: Los Angeles fires fuel falsehoods, including by Trump about water management
- FACT: Water reservoirs in Southern California are at record levels. There is no shortage of water in Southern California.
- FACT: Wildland firefighters don’t use hydrants — they use water tenders. And that is what has been used to ensure continued water access. Three million gallons of water were stored in three large tanks for fire hydrants in the area before the Palisades fire, but the supply was exhausted because of the extraordinary nature of this hurricane-force firestorm.
- FACT: The Governor has called for an independent investigation into the loss of water pressure to local fire hydrants and the reported unavailability of water supplies from the Santa Ynez Reservoir. While urban water systems are built for structure fires and fire suppression, not hurricane-force firestorms, it is important to understand what happened so we can be better prepared in the future.
- FACT: There is no water shortage in Southern California right now, despite Trump’s claims that he would open some imaginary spigot.
- Orange County Water District, which supplies groundwater to the north half of the county, has enough supply to carry its 2.5 million customers through the worst of any potential droughts for3 to 5 years.
- The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — which serves 19 million people mostly with imported water — also has an abundance, “with a record 3.8 million acre-feet of water in storage,” (1 million acres of land with water that is 3.8 feet deep) according to Interim General Manager Deven Upadhyay, who issued a statement last week. That’s enough water to supply 40 million people for a year.
- FACT: Reservoirs are full and water is available.
Alarmed, local water managers rushed Thursday to prepare for an abrupt onslaught of water they had not asked for, according to county officials. In an email to the Kings County Board of Supervisors, Jim Henderson, the county’s public works director, said that the water authorities had reached out with “serious concerns” before a flurry of calls to local Republican members of Congress dramatically slowed the flows.
An initial directive to unleash 5,500 cubic feet per second from the reservoir serving Kings County, for example, was slashed to 50 cubic feet per second before it was dialed up Friday to a more manageable 1,500 cubic feet per second to ensure that “the channels would hold,” the email said.
SJV Water, a nonprofit news site based in the Central Valley, was first to report the news.
In a statement, a public affairs officer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gene Pawlik, said that “consistent with the direction in the Executive Order on Emergency Measures to Provide Water Resources in California, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is releasing water from Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Success Lake to ensure California has water available to respond to the wildfires.”
Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, said the state has no say in how the Army Corps manages flows from the two reservoirs. But she noted that the release did not seem necessary.
Just wait until that idiot tries to nuke a hurricane.