Last Friday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee questioned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after the United States Army Corps of Engineers, in accordance with the wishes of the Trump administration, directed unscheduled water releases from Lake Kaweah (the Terminus Dam) and Success Lake (the Schafer Dam) in Tulare County.

The water release occurred on Jan. 30, with the water ostensibly to be used to fight fires in Southern California; most of the water, reserved for important growing regions in central California, went into the ground.

Senator Alex Padilla, D-Calif., released a statement condemning the act as “reckless” and noted that the fires had largely been contained by Jan. 30.“Unscheduled water releases require close coordination with local officials and safety personnel, as well as downstream agricultural water users, in order to reduce flood risks to communities and farms,” wrote Padilla. “Based on the urgent concerns I have heard from my constituents, as well as recent reporting, it appears that gravely insufficient notification was given, recklessly endangering residents downstream.”

The senator also said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that President Trump “is fixated on false claims about California’s water supply … (and) he’s using it to withhold disaster aid from wildfire victims.”

Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, told the LA Times that state officials were not consulted during the process and there was no demand for the water released.

“We traditionally have a high degree of coordination at the operational level, which really wasn’t a part of this decision,” Nemeth told the Times.

On Jan. 31, Trump tweeted: “Photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California. Today, 1.6 billion gallons and, in three 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!”

According to reporting from SJV Water, the Army Corps of Engineers’ actions released roughly 2,500 acre-feet from Lake Success and 4,800 acre-feet from Lake Kaweah; the majority of that water ended up going into groundwater recharge — a wasteful end in this particularly wet California winter.

Representatives from the Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District told the Times-Standard that they were instructed to no longer comment on the matter.

U.S. House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Ranking Member Rick Larsen, a Washington state Democrat, released a joint statement on Saturday, noting that they had sent a letter to Hegseth and to Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum demanding answers.

“According to multiple news reports, these releases deviated from established flood safety protocols and were carried out with minimal notice — leaving state and local government officials and local water managers ‘caught off-guard’ as flows rapidly escalated from nominal levels to channel capacity within hours,” Huffman and Larsen wrote. “This sudden, uncoordinated move raises serious concerns for downstream agricultural operations and communities since local authorities had little time to adjust or plan accordingly.”

The two congressmen also noted in that statement that the unscheduled water releases “did not meet their stated intent of providing Los Angeles with additional water and could reduce the availability of critical municipal and agricultural water supplies later in the year — further exacerbating the fire, safety, and economic risks facing this drought-prone region for years.”

Robert Schaulis can be reached at 707-441-0585.