… Western water is as complex as an issue can get. Trump’s uninformed, shoot-from-the-hip style does not bode well for addressing the many connected and complicated issues facing western water managers. The recent federal engagement in California in the San Joaquin Valley was not only ineffective but wasteful and dangerous. By all accounts, the White House suddenly ordered the Army Corps of Engineers, operators of dams on the Tule and Kawheah rivers, to start releasing water from essentially zero to filling the river channels. Water was released for a few days, reaching the terminus of both rivers in the Tulare Basin. No lives were lost. Damage to property was largely averted. But no good came of this action.
–Written by Lester Snow, natural resources consultant, former regional director for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and former director of the California Department of Water Resources.