There are two major problems, the water experts say: newly liberated water will not reach Los Angeles and is being wasted when they are released during the Winter Humid Station
The US Army Engineers body opened two dams on Friday in the center of California and let about eight million cubic meters of water from the reservoirs, after President Donald Trump ordered the liberation with the misunderstanding of Send water to southern California, devastated by fire.
Trump celebrated the measure in publications on Truth Social on Friday and Sunday, stating that “water is flowing in California” and adding that the water was “going to farmers from all over the state and to Los Angeles.”
There are two major problems, the water experts say: newly liberated water will not reach Los Angeles and is being wasted when released during the Winter Humid Station.
“They were retaining extra water in these reservoirs due to the risk of a dry summer,” said Heather Cooley, research director of the California Water Policy Organization, the Pacific Institute. “This puts agriculture at risk of not having enough water during the summer months.”
On Friday, Trump published that seven million cubic meters were being released, adding that “in 3 days there will be 22 million cubic meters.”
About eight million cubic meters were released from Friday to Sunday, local districts said in a statement released Monday. This water was discharged to the dry bed of Lake Tulare, according to a letter from Senator Alex Padilla to the defense secretary Pete Hegseth.
“The downstream entities used these discharges to satisfy the limited demand for irrigation and the recharge of groundwater,” the statement says.
“This liberation is extremely worrying,” said Cooley. “It does not bring any benefit and puts California farmers at risk of being restricted to water supply in the coming months.”
The director of the California Water Resources Department, Karla Nemeth, told reporters that there was little coordination between federal employees and state and local water managers for the liberation of the Army body in the Terminus Dam on Kaweah Lake and Schafer Dam at Lake Success.
“These reservoirs were federal and the state of California did not participate in decision making in this case,” Nemeth said. “Traditionally, we have a high degree of operational coordination, which was not part of this decision.”
The California State Water project provides northern California water to southern California, including Los Angeles. Los Angeles water supply comes from part of state reservoirs and, in part, from the Colorado River.
But the sources of water from Los Angeles are completely separated from the water system that Lake Kaweah and Lake Success provide. This water system flows to the central valley, where agriculture is very intense – where large Thursdays cultivate nuts, citrus and grasses for animal feed, among other crops. The region, which suffers from water stress, depends strongly on groundwater and winter precipitation stored in state reservoirs to irrigate cultures.
The US Army Engineers’ body and the White House did not respond to CNN’s request for commentary.
