Politico reports:

President Donald Trump declared victory on Friday in his long-running water war with California, boasting he sent billions of gallons south — but local officials say they narrowly prevented him from possibly flooding farms.

”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!” he said in a post on his social media site.

Local officials had to talk the Army Corps of Engineers down after it abruptly alerted them Thursday afternoon it was about to increase flows from two reservoirs to maximum capacity — a move the agency said was in response to Trump directing the federal government to “maximize” water supplies.

Before the Corps ratcheted down its plan, local authorities scrambled to move equipment and warn farms about possible flooding, said Victor Hernandez, who oversees water management on one of the rivers, the Kaweah in Tulare County. He said the Corps gave him one hour notice on Thursday.

“I’ve been here 25 years, and I’ve never been given notice that quick,” Hernandez said. “That was alarming and scary.”

The incident is the latest chapter in an ongoing feud between Trump and state authorities that has been turbo-charged by the Los Angeles fires, which the president has used to reignite long-running complaints about water management that had nothing to do with the response to the disaster.

An Army Corps spokesperson tied the releases to Trump’s executive order on Sunday directing all federal agencies to maximize water deliveries in order to respond to the fires that started in Los Angeles earlier this month.

“Consistent with the direction in the Executive Order on Emergency Measures to Provide Water Resources in California, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is releasing water from Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Success Lake to ensure California has water available to respond to the wildfires,” Gene Pawlik said in a statement.

While releasing water from reservoirs before a big storm, like the one expected to hit Northern California this weekend, is standard flood-control procedure to avoid overflowing dams, Hernandez said the Army Corps’ Thursday plan would have released far more water than needed. He said releasing the water at the capacity the Corps had planned to would have flooded both the Kaweah and Tule rivers, where the Corps’ reservoirs are located.

“Channel capacity is very dangerous,” Hernandez said. “People don’t understand that [with] channel capacity, you’re going to have flood damage down below.”

Trump since his first term and during his presidential campaigns has repeatedly vowed to send more water to Central Valley farmers in the state’s conservative heartland. He incorrectly blamed the temporary lack of water in Los Angeles hydrants during wildfires earlier this month on the state’s water management policies, though the state’s reservoirs are at or near historic levels right now and the hydrants went dry because of the high local demand. He’s also threatened to withhold disaster aid unless California goes along with his moves to deliver more water.

Officials from his Department of Government Efficiency visited a federal water-pumping station in Northern California on Monday, after which Trump posted on Truth Social that “The United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER.” California officials clarified Monday that the federal pumps had been down due to electrical maintenance.

But a former senior Bureau of Reclamation official said moves like the one in Tulare County could endanger property and lives. Reclamation is the primary federal agency with authority over delivering water in the West, while the Army Corps is largely responsible for flood control.

“Something really bad could happen because of their nonsensical approach,” the former official, who was granted anonymity because of the issue’s political sensitivity, said. “Floods are real. This isn’t playing around with a software company.”

Rick Brown, the public affairs officer for the Army Corps of Engineers in Sacramento, said Friday the two reservoirs had hit water levels high enough on Thursday to trigger standard flood control releases.

He referred further questions about the decision to maximize water releases to Army Corps headquarters.

Hernandez said he was told by Jenny Fromm, the Army Corp’s chief water manager in Sacramento, that the decision came from “somewhere above.” The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether it ordered the releases.

Hernandez said that after he resisted the decision, Fromm told him the Corps would release the water at a third of the original planned speed, rather than at maximum capacity. Aaron Fukuda, the general manager of the Tulare Irrigation District, also confirmed the Army Corps reduced flood releases after local officials pushed back. [Continue reading…]