water policy
rf...@sonic.net
Army Corps knew Trump order would waste California water, memo shows
Source: Washington Post
The Army Corps of Engineers colonel responsible for releasing water from two California reservoirs at President Donald Trump’s direction in January knew that it was unlikely to reach the southern part of the state as Trump had promised, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post.
The agency carried out Trump’s directive, which came in the wake of catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles County, on short notice on Jan. 30, though it would normally require days to coordinate. A memo written four days after the release, obtained by The Post through a public records request, shows how federal officials rushed ahead with the plan to release irrigation water despite objections from the state’s elected officials and some local farmers.
Col. Chad W. Caldwell, commander of the Army Corps’ Sacramento district, wrote that the water that poured out of Lake Kaweah and Success Lake “could not be delivered to Southern California directly.” To do so would have required several steps of coordination with state and federal agencies to transport the water to a rarely used connection point, and it quickly became clear that was impossible in such little time, according to the memo.
The release was done to satisfy Trump’s executive order, Caldwell wrote. And the colonel had also been asked to send photos of the water to Washington, according to an official familiar with the request who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Trump posted a photo of water flowing from Lake Kaweah on X the next day.
-snip-
____________
If memory serves, just around 2,000,000,000 gallons.
rf...@sonic.net
Letter to the "Honorable" SecDef re the 2.2 billion gallon water release. Gotta vendetta? They do, against California. Good for Costa for putting it on record.
__
(may req. cut and paste)
rf...@sonic.net
"Legislators and environmentalists are considering how to safeguard California’s wetlands after the Trump administration announced its plans to rein in — once again — the nation’s 53-year-old law protecting waterways.
At stake are seasonal streams, ponds and pools, which are only inundated part of the time and found throughout the Southwest. In California, an estimated 80% of all linear miles of streams and rivers are ephemeral or intermittent.
The Trump administration’s plan to alter the Clean Water Act’s definition of wetlands to exclude such waterways could render vast areas of California essentially unprotected from developers and growers..."
-Alastair Bland, CalMatters
rf...@sonic.net
In the blossoming arena of US privatization prospects, another instructive story.
raw sewage release rate rising alongside customer bill rate...
rf...@sonic.net
https://socalwatersierraclub.org/trumps-wild-goose-chase-a-2-2-billion-gallon-waste/
Not exactly new news: details regarding the opening salvo from the Mump administration in its vendetta against California.