These are the same guys rifling thru your financial and medical data.
A group of Department of Government Efficiency agents repeatedly pressured a federal official to open a large water pump system in California — and then flew there to do it themselves, according to a new report.
DOGE staffers attempted to pressure the acting head of the Bureau of Reclamation to open a water pump system, CNN reports. The staffers wanted to send the water to Los Angeles amid the devastating wildfires in January — even though the system wouldn’t have allowed it to reach the scorched city, CNN reports.
Despite this, they still decided to take matters into their own hands.
In January, DOGE staffers called the Bureau of Reclamation claiming President Donald Trump wanted water pumps turned on at the Jones Pumping Plant, which sends water to the state’s Central Valley, CNN reports.
But when the official didn’t give in, staffers Tyler Hassen and Bryton Shang flew to California to open the pumps themselves and get a photo while doing so, CNN reports. But two issues stopped them.
First, the power was off due to planned maintenance. Second, Shang wasn’t an official federal employee yet, meaning he couldn’t access the pump. Hassen couldn’t do it either, CNN reports, because he had to fly back before the power would be restored.
“They didn’t get their photo op,” an unnamed source with knowledge of the incident told CNN, adding it represented “what DOGE has been this entire time — this slapstick operation of 20-somethings they’re seeing as whiz kids but have zero knowledge.”
Instead, the DOGE X account posted a photo of Shang and Hassen in front of a map, along with other pictures of the plant.
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Soon after the visit, Trump ordered the US Army Corps to open up two Southern California dams at the end of January. This release sent water rushing toward farmland in the San Joaquin Valley, the Los Angeles Timesreports, prompting concern from farmers.
“This is going to hurt farmers,” water consultant Dan Vink told the outlet. “This takes water out of their summer irrigation portfolio.”
But word of a water release out of both Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Lake Success came as a shock to many.
South Valley farmers weren’t happy to see the outward flow. That stored water represents their spring and summer supply, and irrigating crops isn’t their priority right now.
“There’s enough snow above Lake Kaweah to, essentially if it all melted off, fill it halfway full. So the idea to release any was questionable,” Zack Stuller with the Tulare County Farm Bureau said.
Stuller says farmers usually get a 10-day to two-week heads up when water will become available.
“But the fact to release that much that quick where we can’t use it was bizarre,” Stuller said.
Jay Lund, an environmental engineer at the University of California, Davis, also noted the breadth and complexity of water management efforts in California, which involve diverse water demands; hydrology and infrastructure; substantial decentralization; and numerous laws, regulations and contracts. As such, he continued, state and federal projects that proceed without intergovernmental and local coordination can falter in terms of effectiveness and wastefulness.
“The recent federal orders to release additional water from some small Tulare basin reservoirs did not have substantial benefits for farmers, who it seems would have preferred to have these releases later and coordinated with them for summer irrigation or groundwater recharge,” said Lund, who is also vice director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California, Davis.
“The releases were disconnected from and had no effect on water availability in the Los Angeles region,” he added. “The releases seem to have been more symbolic of some rough longer-term federal intention.”
What a pair of dks!