Water experts are sounding the alarm after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the opening of two dams in Central California late last week, letting approximately 2.2 billion gallons of water flow out of reservoirs.
The Army Corps of Engineers released water from two reservoirs in the Sierra Nevada on Friday, but the move didn’t allow for much warning for local farmers, reported Politico.
“Local water managers on the Kaweah and Tule rivers had to move equipment and alert farms about possible flooding with only an hour’s notice,” Kaweah River Water Master Victor Hernandez told the outlet, calling the situation “alarming and scary.”
He’s not the only one expressing concerns about the water management tactic, which many have argued is a misguided move on the part of Trump, who said in recent weeks that California withheld critical water supplies that could have made a difference when fighting the flames of wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles and Southern California last month.
On Friday, Trump posted an announcement showing a photo of a flowing river, calling it the “beautiful water flow that I just opened in California.”
A post from President Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform, boasting about releasing water from California dams.
Truth Social
“There is absolutely no connection between this water and the water needed for firefighting in L.A.,” Peter Gleick, a climate and hydrology expert and senior fellow with the American non-profit Pacific Institute, told CBS News. “There’s no physical connection. There’s no way to move the water from where it is to the Los Angeles basin.”
Furthermore, Gleick told the Los Angeles Times, the water will “not be used or usable for firefighting, not be used by farmers since this isn’t the irrigation season, and won’t be saved for the dry season, which is coming.”
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It was “a needlessly self-destructive action purely for political showmanship,” Gleick said.
Here’s a look at how the release of water could affect California residents, farm operations and animals in coming months.
Risk of flooding
Some experts argue that winter — typically when California receives most of its precipitation — was not the best time to release water from the dams, arguing it may be wasted or even lead to flooding.
“Releasing it now, when it’s raining doesn’t do anybody good, except it creates the very real risk of potential flooding,” water strategist Barry Nelson told CBS.
Hernandez told Politico that local officials were able to step in at the last minute and narrowly prevent flooding over the weekend, talking the Army Corps of Engineers into releasing just 2.2 billion gallons, instead of the 5.2 billion gallons Trump boasted were coming in his Truth Social post.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113925591427889253
While it’s not unusual for water to be released from dams ahead of heavy precipitation events, like the rainfall that hit Northern California over the weekend, Hernandez said Trump’s initial directive would have released far more water than needed and flooded the Kaweah and Tule rivers.
Risk of insufficient water
Other experts argue that while the amount of water released was less than Trump initially ordered, it could have been used during California’s notoriously arid summers instead.
“They were holding extra water in those reservoirs because of the risk that it would be a dry summer,” Heather Cooley, director of research for the Pacific Institute, told CNN. “This puts agriculture at risk of insufficient water during the summer months.”
“These kinds of shenanigans, they hurt smaller farmers,” agreed Dezaraye Bagalayos, a local water activist, speaking to the Los Angeles Times.
Small growers have already been struggling, she said, and the releasing of water from dams this time of year means there will be less during the peak growing season.
“The last thing in the world California water management needs is somebody like Trump calling shots when he doesn’t know how anything works,” Bagalayos said. “It’s making an already hard situation very, very difficult. We don’t have a lot of wiggle room in the state of California to be messing around with our water supply like this.”
Risk to salmon
Humans aren’t the only ones potentially facing risks and dangerous conditions as a result of Trump’s order.
Nelson, a policy consultant for the Golden State Salmon Association, told CBS that their members have had to hold off fishing for the past two years because of dwindling supply of Chinook salmon.
“California salmon are right now at one of the most disastrous points they’ve been at, certainly in human history,” said Nelson, adding that rivers with larger flows during hot months are crucial to salmon populations.
“We’ve now gone to a point where many of our most important salmon runs are on the brink of extinction.”
Moreover, the group Save California Salmon, which represents tribal communities and the salmon fishing industry, told local outlet Cal Matters that Trump “suggests a water scarcity that does not exist,” and blamed the closing of the state’s Chinook salmon fishery, which shut down in 2023, on water regulations implemented during Trump’s first administration five years ago.
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