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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has dramatically increased the amount of water flowing from two dams in Tulare County, sending massive flows down a river channel toward farmlands in the San Joaquin Valley.
Federal records show that water releases from Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Lake Success jumped early Friday morning.
That was four days after President Trump said on social media that the U.S. military had “entered” California and “TURNED ON THE WATER.” Trump also vowed during a visit to Los Angeles last week to “open up the valves and pumps” in California to deliver more water.
According to federal data, the flow from Terminus Dam into the Kaweah River near Visalia increased from 57 cubic feet per second to more than 1,500 on Friday morning. The flow from Lake Success near Porterville into the Tule River increased from 105 cubic feet per second to 990.
The Army Corps of Engineers is “conducting controlled water releases” from the two dams, said Tyler Stalker, a spokesperson for the Corps in Sacramento. “The action is being coordinated with local officials. The releases are within the capacity of the downstream waterways.”
Responding to questions about the reasons for the sudden increase in water flow, Gene Pawlik, a spokesperson at the Corps’ headquarters in Washington, said in an email that the action was “consistent with the direction” in a Trump’s recent executive order to enact “emergency measures to provide water resources” in California.
Pawlik said the Army Corps was releasing water from the dams “to ensure California has water available to respond to the wildfires.” It was not immediately clear how or where the federal government intends to transport the water.
The water was released from the dams as two approaching atmospheric river storms were forecast to bring snow and rain to California.
Dam managers in California regularly release water ahead of major storms to make room in reservoirs for more runoff. But the federal agency’s comments about Trump’s executive order suggest that this case was different.
Aaron Fukuda, general manager of the Tulare Irrigation District, told the news site SJV Water that normally such flood releases are “done with a lot of notification and coordination.”
“I’ve been doing this 18 years and have never seen something like this.”
