What is this “valve” that Trump wants turned back to Los Angeles? Is he confused about something, or did he make it up?
I don’t have a clue what he’s referring to, and from what I’ve seen online, neither does anyone else. Trump’s claim seems to be that officials are dumping water in the sea that could have been used to fight wildfires, and that all they need to do is turn the “valve” back to Los Angeles. Is this some metaphorical valve that he is referring to or does he really think there’s one big valve that someone just needs to turn with a big pipe wrench?
Either way, he’s wrong. While there is a good point to be made about California’s lack of common sense when it comes to managing their water resources, there isn’t any way to easily divert water used for agriculture over to fighting wildfires.
Trump said he wants to issue an executive order forcing California to let the water come down through the state instead of throwing it into the ocean.
Governor Newsom has since issued a statement saying that Trump is either unaware of how water is stored in California or he’s intentionally misleading the public.
I would opine that Trump woke up in the middle of the night, turned on the televisor, and caught the last half of Chinatown, but there is no way he would watch more than five minutes of a film that slowly paced. And if he did, he’d be talking about “Ginatown, that story about a hardworking landowner with the beautiful daughter who is treated so unfairly by Jack Nicklaus, you know he had a big set of balls, so big that he had a second caddy to cart them around,…”
Stranger
The speck of truth that’s triggered Trump is the controversy surround the delta smelt (details on Wikipedia). In summary, in order to protect this endangered species, the U.S. federal government and the state of California are court-ordered to keep the waters levels in the NorCal delta above some minimum level. That is, allow some water to flow to the ocean without being diverted for direct human use.
The governor of California is as responsible for this as the president of U.S., which is to say not at all. It’s already litigated. It is also a tiny amount of water, which would have little impact on the current dry conditions in SoCal.
Thanks, Pleonast.
Internet sleuths have found the valve that takes an entire day to turn on or off.
It is also a fact that regardless of how much water is available in reservoirs and fire cisterns, the municipal water supplies (which are not controlled by the state) can only provide so much volume of water at a time before pressure drops cause the hydrants to run dry. Those systems are sized for typical residential and modest commercial use, and in the case of older neighborhoods are often already stressed by the amount of additional housing since they were originally installed. Relying on that system to provide water volume to fight a massive wind-driven firestorm is hopeless, notwithstanding that as houses burn to the ground their own water supply systems fail and release pressure.
The City of San Francisco actually has an entirely separate High Pressure Auxiliary Water Supply System specifically for fire service use because of the history the city has had with massive urban fires (most recently the 1906 earthquake and fire, but also the “Great Conflagration” in 1851 that burned most of the structures in the city to the ground). To install such a system in fire-threatened neighborhoods today would require digging up streets, sidewalks, and lawns at almost incalculable cost, and would still not prevent the kind of gale-force-wind-driven firestorms that consumed Pacific Palisades and Altadena.
It is also the case that in wet years (as we have had the prior two years, and even this year in Northern California), it is necessary to release water from reservoirs in anticipation of snowpack melt to avoid overload and collapse of damns and irrigation systems. So, even though someone told Trump a fish story about dumping water for smelt, California typically has to release water anyway to prevent catastrophies like that which almost happened at the Oroville Dam in 2017.
Per usual, Trump has no idea what he is talking about, and isn’t going to be bothered by inconvenient facts when it comes to attacking political adversaries or making sweeping claims about ‘wokeness’, notwithstanding that he has no authority to issue an executive order telling California what to do with completely internal water reservoirs. It is a given at this point that he will refuse to allow any federal aid for fire abatement or reconstruction, and that his boosters will blame it all on “Governor NewScum”, because they are about as clever with their taunts as a second grade boy.
Stranger
Heh. My first thought reading this was, since Trump is boasting about his infrastructure plans, Newsom should ask for federal money to build windmills to harness the high winds and provide the mechanical energy needed to pressurize such a fire-fighting water system.
Think of it! Every fire hydrant could have a windmill on top of it–as far as the eye could see. The greater the wind speed, the higher the water pressure. Maybe another windmill system could be used to pressurize residential showerheads and toilets.
Here’s an article on the issue. Trump is reinstating regulations created in 2019 and then rescinded.
At stake are the rules that guide operation of the federal Central Valley Project and State Water Project, the two systems that deliver water from Northern California rivers to San Joaquin Valley farmers, Southern California residents and other water users in the southern half of the state.
Because the two systems harm salmon and other protected fish, the regulations have been highly contentious and debated among federal and state officials, environmentalists, farm groups, tribes and scientists for decades.
Trump apparently is asking his agencies to override the latest version, years in the making, that the Biden administration, with the support of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, announced in December.
Of course he wants to override environmental protections that the Dems put in place. The rest of his pronouncements on this subject are propaganda.
How do we fight such typical, Trumpian, lies when a critical mass of the population chooses to believe this crap? Is there even an answer to this?
If this qualifies as a hijack - my apologies.
It isn’t possible, there aren’t enough hours in the day,
Not a hijack at all, it is pertinent to my question. In Wagner’s Ring operas, Wotan asks a character, “Are you malicious or merely insane?” I believe Trump to be malicious. I had thought that perhaps someone explained a concept to him with an analogy, and he took it literally, but some posts above show that he is malicious as hell, doing some things just to change the way a previous President did.
But I digress. Replying to your post, why do people believe ridiculous things like Democrats eating babies? I read on Facebook how people said ridiculous, scathing things about Bishop Budde because she asked Trump to show mercy. Some people are very dumb and very mean. Perhaps they want to believe these things because they are mean.
The next four years are going to be challenging to say the least.
Why is a stupid fish letting California burn and the farms go dry…
California’s salmon industry is valued at $1.4 billion in economic activity and 23,000 jobs annually in a normal season and contributes approximately $700 million to the Oregon economy and supports more than 10,000 jobs.
Can’t he be both?
I was going to say the same thing.