JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
In the wake of the Los Angeles fires, President Trump blamed California officials for not sending enough water to help with firefighting efforts. Water experts debunked that claim, saying there was plenty of water already in southern California to battle the deadly blazes. But last week, Trump directed big water releases from two dams in California's Central Valley, implying it would have prevented the fires if it had happened sooner. As KVPR's Joshua Yeager reports, that has sparked concern among water managers and local farmers who rely on that water.
JOSHUA YEAGER, BYLINE: According to a statement from local irrigation districts, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers flushed the water - more than 2 billion gallons - out of the dams in the Sierra Nevada foothills between last Friday and Sunday. The agency said it was to help combat wildfires in southern California under an executive order the president signed last month. Here's Trump earlier this week in the Oval Office.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: All we're doing is giving Los Angeles and the entire state of California virtually unlimited water.
YEAGER: The Los Angeles fires are fully contained at this point, but experts say the water would have been no use to firefighters in the city, which is nearly 200 miles south. Reservoirs there already have plenty, according to Jay Lund, a water scientist and professor at UC Davis.
JAY LUND: If you took the surface area of the wildfires, you could cover them in 20, 25 feet of water with all the water that's already in reservoirs in that region.
YEAGER: In some cases, firefighters reported hydrants going dry and a lack of water to extinguish the blazes. The issue, Lund says, was getting the water that was already there to burning neighborhoods, using infrastructure that was never built to handle so much demand. So he says the Trump administration's move this weekend to release water from Central California didn't address the problem, and, he adds, it won't help the farmers who need that water to irrigate their crops come spring.
LUND: And so it's not clear if it, in fact, will be useful at all.
YEAGER: Water gets stored behind these dams as snow melts down from the Sierra peaks. As spring turns into summer and things get hot, water managers then slowly release that water for farmers to use. The Central Valley is among the nation's most productive farmland. Joel Isaak has grown citrus here for decades.
JOEL ISAAK: I mean, it's our water. We need to make sure we have enough for our crops, and hopefully we have enough water this season.
YEAGER: A recent snow survey measured one of the driest Januaries on record for this part of the Sierra. That means less water behind the dam for crops, and Isaak anticipates he won't have a drop to spare this season.
ISAAK: We're overdrawing on the aquifer now, which we need to replenish the water that we're taking out.
YEAGER: Water managers and farmers say that Trump's release of water came too early in the season to be useful for growers. As a result, they may have less water for crops when they need it. Still, Isaak and many of the valley's growers say they stand behind Trump.
ISAAK: I don't think valley growers feel that this was in any way done as an intentional, you know, attack on valley agriculture.
TRICIA STEVER BLATTLER: Tricia Stever Blattler runs the Tulare County Farm Bureau, which represents more than a thousand growers in this area. The county is one of several in the region that went for Trump this election.
BLATTLER: There's a general feeling of encouragement and excitement that these orders are taking on some very challenging issues here in this state.
YEAGER: For the farm bureau, that includes pushing for more water to go to farmers and less to be saved for an endangered fish called the delta smelt.
BLATTLER: In general, you know, farmers are supportive of what President Trump is trying to do in, you know, relaxing some of the really draconian environmental laws in California.
YEAGER: But any challenge to the way water is regulated in the state has an uncertain future. California sued over similar efforts during Trump's first term. For NPR News, I'm Joshua Yeager in the Central Valley. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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