Fires in the Los Angeles area are not only causing devastating damage to property and lives, but also fueling political debate over how to put them out, with President-elect Trump blaming state officials for water shortages. I am doing it.
A social media brawl erupted Wednesday as efforts by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADPW) to fill three million-gallon storage tanks left some fire hydrants in the Pacific Palisades high and dry. It has begun. extreme water demandwas exceeding the speed LADPW says this will allow it to replenish tanks at higher altitudes.
Shortly afterward, President Trump blamed Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Truth Social for the shortage, accusing him of blocking efforts to pump more water from Northern California to the Los Angeles area.
But experts argue that moving more water in this way is impractical from an infrastructure perspective and completely unnecessary.
“Would that have made any difference in terms of what we're experiencing right now with wildfires and the damage they're causing?” Kurt, professor of environmental economics and policy at the University of California (UC) Riverside. Mr. Schwabe asked:
“I would say no,” he told The Hill, noting that reservoirs across the state are currently in good condition. “With this level of dryness in Southern California, we can't irrigate all the forests.”
President Trump made the call Wednesday night.Newsom to resignfollow up previous postIn it, he said, “Millions of gallons of water from excess rain and snowmelt from the north will flow into many areas of California each day, including areas where the fires are currently burning. The governor was criticized for not signing the declaration. It's a virtually apocalyptic approach. ”
Immediately go to the governor's officedenounced the accusation “There is no document like a Water Restoration Declaration,” Social Platform “The focus is on doing things,” he wrote, calling it “pure fiction.”
Trump was likely referring to water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (“Bay Delta”) According to the California Department of Water Resources, the company provides drinking water to approximately 27 million residents through state water projects.
But the city of Los Angeles actually gets much of its water elsewhere. Approximately 38%According to LADPW, drinking water usage in 2023 (the latest year for which data is available) will come from the Los Angeles Aqueduct. ofAqueduct carries water Not from the Bay Delta region of Northern California, but from the Owens River Valley in the eastern Sierra Nevada to the city.
An additional 9 percent of the city's drinking water in 2023 will come from local groundwater, 2 percent from recycled wastewater, and 51 percent will be imported from the Southern California Metropolitan Water District. only 30 percentTwenty percent of the metropolitan area's water comes from the Colorado River, and 50 percent comes from the northern Sierra, as it is a mix of other resources.
Wednesday night, Newsomannounced by the state Up to 140 water trucks were mobilized to fight the Eaton and Palisades fires. The 2,500-gallon vessel joins about 23 vessels already on the ground, his office said.
In the same announcement, his team said, “The state began closely tracking this weather event over the weekend and began pre-positioning resources on Sunday.” The governor added that he is in constant communication with local, state and federal leaders, including President Biden.
Earlier in the day, Biden approvedMr. Newsom called for a presidential major disaster declaration, which would make federal aid available to augment emergency response costs.
Daniel Swain, a climatologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, addressed the issue of preparedness in a webinar the same day, noting that “a lot of resources were deployed in advance, which likely saved lives.” .
“This event scared people in the world of weather forecasting for a week before it happened,” he said. “In fact, it is probably only because of these dire predictions that the situation has not gotten much worse.”
“I'm sure there are people who are alive right now who wouldn't be alive if it weren't for the resources that were pre-positioned,” Swain added.
Nevertheless, Trump followed up:More criticism Thursday morning He denounced the “gross incompetence of Gavin Newscome and Karen Bass,” referring to the mayor of Los Angeles, but added, “Biden's FEMA has no money – it's all wasted on the Green New Scam!”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has approved the use of federal funds to assist California. in fighting multiplea fire breaks out Los Angeles areahe said.make assistance availableTo those affected by the fire.
As far as pumping more water from north to south, University of California, Riverside's Schwabe said doing so “would have had virtually no effect on what we're currently experiencing. ” he emphasized.
Instead, Schwabe described the ongoing crisis as a “local preparedness issue” in the sense that cities need to consider “changing climate regimes” in future planning and resource allocation.
For example, rather than relying solely on the three tanks in Pacific Palisades, he suggested partnerships could be formed with neighboring communities that could potentially share tanks in a crisis.
Schwabe explained that repositioning and diversifying supply sources is more strategic than increasing the amount of water flowing into the region.
He likened the situation to a home fire where a resident only has one garden hose and asks a neighbor to borrow another. Like that household, Schwabe explained that Southern California will need “more garden hoses and bigger garden hoses” in the future.
Patrick Reed, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Cornell University, echoed this sentiment, noting that there is a divide between two elements of water management in Los Angeles: “crisis response and long-term planning.”
In an emailed statement, Reed said the situation at Pacific Palisades' water tanks “reflects the extraordinary demands” local officials are facing in dealing with the immediate crisis.
“Long-term plans for urban water supplies typically do not anticipate that water supplies will be used to fight large wildfires in densely populated urban areas,” he continued.
Reid said the “amazing shock” caused by the ongoing fires and the resulting stress on water usage exceeded “the peak demand scenario that would be used for planning.”
Nevertheless, he stressed that such short-term disasters can have long-term consequences in the form of loss of life and property damage.
Los Angeles is dealing with a situation where known climate change risks are “presenting themselves in the kind of extraordinary extremes that long-term planning has struggled to address,” Reed explained.
Going forward, Schwabe said he thinks it's worth pausing and reevaluating contingency plans under new climate scenarios, not only in Southern California but also in other parts of the Western United States.
“Otherwise, you're assuming these events are just very rare events and making decisions based on historical data and evidence about climate,” he said.
“Then we will continue to make these mistakes in the future,” Schwabe added.
