“This is just stupid and ridiculous and dangerous and wasteful.”
Washington D.C. — U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined CBS News’ Jonathan Vigliotti to discuss President Donald Trump’s careless decision to direct California officials to needlessly release billions of gallons of water and create more problems for California’s farmers.
Watch the full CBS News Mornings interview here.
Key Excerpt:
On the Trump administration’s reckless decision:
Schiff: This is just stupid and ridiculous and dangerous and wasteful.
Vigliotti: California Senator Adam Schiff is slamming President Trump’s order to maximize water releases from two reservoirs last Friday. Were you made aware that this was going to happen?
Schiff: I think even the water managers got only a short bit of notice to say, “Please don’t. You can’t do that, that’s way too much water.” And frankly, had they not talked the Army Corps off the ledge, there would have been serious flooding. It would have been an even bigger problem.
[…]
Schiff: This is a waste of precious water, and we just don’t have the water to waste.
On what water experts are saying:
Vigliotti: Billions of gallons of water are now rushing into a dry lake bed in the state’s Central Valley, where scientists say it can’t flow south and will likely go to waste.
Glick: There is absolutely no connection between this water and the water needed for firefighting in LA. There’s no physical connection. There’s no way to move the water from where it is to the Los Angeles Basin.
Vigliotti: Peter Glick, a climate and hydrology expert, says the move ignores the reality of water management in California.
Glick: The farmers in the basin own the water, and that water is stored in these dams in the winter during the rainy season, so that farmers can use it in the very hot, long, dry summer season. From the perspective of the farmers in the basin, I think that water will assume to be lost.
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