Releasing water meant for irrigation in the dry season, at the peak of the rainy season, makes no sense.
This guy has a serious Napoleon complex, and he’s going to do a lot of damage.
“I know more about the California irrigation and flood control system than anybody…”
Trump issued the executive order last weekend in response to the catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles after he had falsely blamed water shortages during the response on California’s water management policies. The president has claimed that the Democratic-run state can simply turn on a “valve” to let more water flow southward, suggesting that it would have aided in last month’s fight to contain several wildfires. Hydrants, which are not typically tapped to fight such blazes, instead ran dry because of spiking demand that made it difficult to refill them.
Southern California’s reservoirs are above historical levels, and experts said water released into the Central Valley would not reach Los Angeles.
Still, on Friday — the same day the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles were fully contained — Trump celebrated a water release in California’s Central Valley, sharing a photo on his social media platform, Truth Social, of water flowing through a dam.
“Photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California,” Trump wrote in the post. “Today, 1.6 billion gallons and, in 3 days, it will be 5.2 billion gallons. 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!”
Army Corps spokesman Gene Pawlik said in a statement on Friday that the releases were made “consistent with the direction in the Executive Order on Emergency Measures to Provide Water Resources in California.” The releases were intended “to ensure California has water available to respond to the wildfires,” he added.
California water management officials, advocates and elected officials have all raised concerns about the move, given that the reserves typically irrigate fields later in the year.
The Army Corps’ water control reports show outflows ramped up dramatically Friday from two reservoirs at Lake Kaweah and Lake Success. Outflows had been at a trickle — water managers husbanded their supply during what has been an unusually dry winter across the southern half of the state — but ramped up to rates exceeding 1,500 cubic feet per second from Lake Kaweah and nearly 1,000 cubic feet per second from Lake Success.
The data shows the reservoirs’ storage declined by more than 3,500 acre feet from early Friday to early Saturday — more than 1.1 billion gallons, and enough water to supply as many as 7,000 California households for a year
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters
by Thomas M. Nichols