Trump's 2.2 billion-gallon Calif. reservoir dump just got even uglier

FILE: On May 4, 2023, the dam at Lake Success fed water into the Tule River, which delivers it to San Joaquin Valley communities. Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

When it happened, the late-January release of around 2.2 billion gallons from California reservoirs already seemed strange, ill-advised and abrupt. But a new report from the Washington Post paints an even bleaker picture.

The three-day release from Lake Kaweah and Lake Success by the Army Corp of Engineers was water that’s typically saved for the drier, hotter growing season, as SFGATE reported at the time. The Army Corps’ move came after Los Angeles County’s devastating January fires prompted President Donald Trump to issue an executive order where he blasted California water policies and commanded federal department heads to “ensure water resources in Southern California.” But the corps’ decision, the Post reported, flew in the face of actual acts.

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The idea that Southern California’s overall water supply hindered firefighting efforts during the Palisades and Eaton fires has been roundly rejected by experts. And vitally, the outlets of Lake Kaweah and Lake Success, which are just west of the Sierra Nevada and manage water for farms in the eastern San Joaquin Valley, are not set up for sending water far south.

It’s now clear that Army Corps officials knew that the sudden dam releases wouldn’t help Southern California, per the Post’s Friday piece, which featured information from an internal memo. But they dumped the water anyway.

The memo was written four days after the releases by Col. Chad W. Caldwell, commander of the Army Corps’ Sacramento District, the Post reported. According to the outlet, he wrote that on the afternoon before releases began, federal and state water officials told him, “It would take more time for them to activate their systems and they likely could not utilize the additional water with such short notice.”

Per the Post, he also wrote in the memo that the water from the two reservoirs “could not be delivered to Southern California directly,” but that the releases were aimed at following Trump’s executive order.

Caldwell also told a California water official that he had been told to take photos of the water being released and send them to Washington, D.C., the Post reported, citing an anonymous official. Sure enough, on Jan. 31, Trump claimed his political win with an image of water flowing from Lake Kaweah.

“Photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California,” he wrote in an X post that has amassed tens of millions of views. “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!”

Rather than actually assist Los Angeles County with firefighting, the water was used downstream of the reservoirs for “limited irrigation demand” and “groundwater recharge,” according to a joint statement from local water agencies. Caldwell’s memo said 2.5 billion gallons were released, per the Post’s report; that number conflicts with the local water agencies’ calculation of 6,700 acre-feet, or 2.2 billion gallons.

Rep. Jim Costa, a Democrat who represents a chunk of the San Joaquin Valley, wrote in a Feb. 1 letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the releases — coming as they did when there’s little demand for irrigation, as well as a low snowpack — pose “grave threats to a reliable water supply this year.”

He added: “This could increase the cost of water for farmers for this crop year exponentially due to dry conditions anticipated.”

On Friday, another California Democrat, Rep. Mike Levin, linked to the Post’s article on X and called the Army Corps’ releases a “Trump publicity stunt.”

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