President Donald Trump issued an order Friday for the US Army Corps of Engineers to open two dams in Central California and release approximately 2.2 billion gallons of water from reservoirs, with the erroneous goal of supplying water to Southern California, which is devastated by fire.
In postings to Truth Social on Friday and Sunday, Trump praised the action, saying that “the water is flowing in California” and that it was “heading to farmers throughout the State, and to Los Angeles.”
According to water experts, there are two main issues: The newly released water is being wasted because it will not reach Los Angeles during the rainy winter months.
According to Heather Cooley, director of research for the Pacific Institute, a California water policy group, “they were holding extra water in those reservoirs because of the risk that it would be a dry summer.” “This increases the risk of water scarcity in agriculture during the summer.”
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Trump said in a statement on Friday that 1.6 billion gallons were being released, and that “it will be 5.2 billion gallons in 3 days.”
According to a statement issued on Monday by the local water districts, approximately 2.2 billion gallons were released between Friday and Sunday. Sen. Alex Padilla wrote to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, claiming that the water was released into the arid lakebed of Tulare Lake.
According to the statement, “downstream entities used these releases for groundwater recharge and limited irrigation demand.”
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“This release raises serious concerns,” Cooley stated. “It’s not helping at all, and California farmers could face water supply shortages in the months ahead.”
Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, told reporters that federal officials and state and local water management did not coordinate well for the Army Corps releases at the Schafer Dam at Lake Success and the Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah.
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“The state of California was not involved in the decision-making process in this case, and these reservoirs were federal reservoirs,” Nemeth stated. “This decision really didn’t take into account the high level of coordination we typically have at the operational level.”
Water from Northern California is supplied to Southern California, including Los Angeles, by the California State Water project. The Colorado River and state reservoirs provide a portion of the water used in Los Angeles.
However, the water system supplied by Lake Kaweah and Lake Success is entirely isolated from the water sources in Los Angeles. This water system empties into the Central Valley, which is primarily an agricultural region where big farms cultivate a variety of products, including grasses for animal feed, almonds, and citrus. For crop irrigation, the water-stressed area mostly depends on groundwater and winter precipitation held in state reservoirs.
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