Ranking Member Huffman Leads Letter Demanding Answers on US Army Corps of Engineers’ Wasteful Water Release

President Trump’s Directive to Release Billions of Gallons of Water in California Did Nothing to Calm Wildfires & Negatively Impacted Farmers & Communities

Washington, D.C. - Today, Ranking Member Jared Huffman (CA-02), alongside Rep. Mike Levin (CA-49) and Laura Friedman (CA-30), sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum demanding answers and accountability on the Administration’s wasteful water releases, which deviated from standard protocol and wasted two billion gallons of water. 
 
After the devastating Los Angeles wildfires had already been contained, President Trump insisted that the Army Corps “open the valves” to send more water to the city. But according to the Washington Post, the US Army Corps of Engineers acknowledged in a memo that they knew President Trump’s directive would do nothing to calm the wildfires and would negatively impact farmers and communities. 
 
Yet the Army Corps followed through on the directive, without consulting stakeholders and communities, and put lives at risk. According to federal records, between January 31^st and February 2^nd, the US Army Corps of Engineers allowed more than two billion gallons of water to flow from Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Lake Success. Instead of providing water resources for the Southern California wildfires, as President Trump claimed, the released water ultimately evaporated in a dry lake bed.
 
Last month, Rep. Levin pressed representatives from the US Army Corps of Engineers about these actions in a Congressional hearing, but did not receive sufficient answers on the water release. 
 
Click here or read the full letter below: 
 
We are writing to express our profound concern over the politically motivated, uncoordinated, unscheduled, and opaque water releases that occurred between January 31 and February 2, 2025, when the US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) dramatically increased the amounts of water flowing from Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Lake Success. We fear that these releases were conducted to placate the President’s vow to “open up the valves” to bring more water to Los Angeles to combat the devastating wildfires—which had already been 100% contained by that point.
 
Federal records show that over three days, more than two billion gallons were released from the reservoirs. This is water that should have been saved for critical water needs and summer irrigation for farmers that could have irrigated 6,000 acres of agricultural trees for an entire year. Instead, this water was left to evaporate in a dry lake bed, sacrificing vital resources in a drought-prone state, seemingly for the appearance of taking action to fight the already contained fires in Los Angeles.

There has been extensive reporting documenting how these sudden, unplanned releases were done with minimal notice and coordination. Local water managers were caught off guard by the decision, and in some cases, they were given just a few hours of advance notice. This lack of coordination is entirely unprecedented given the Corps’ established flood safety rules, as outlined in Chapter 5 of the water control management manual (ER 1110-2-240), which require communication and coordination with stakeholders and the general public.

More recent reporting has revealed that the Corps knew that the water could not be delivered to Southern California directly, and that doing so would have required several steps of coordination with local, state, and federal agencies to bring the water through a rarely used connection point. Despite knowing how much coordination would have been necessary to actually deliver the water to Southern California, the Corps failed to conduct the necessary outreach to other agencies with enough advance warning to actually make the releases successful in achieving the purported purpose.

Further, during a Congressional hearing in February, a Corps official was unable to answer basic questions about what had happened with the water releases, repeatedly stating, “I don’t know what happened to the water once it was released from the dams.” We are very concerned by the apparent lack of clear direction with which these releases were conducted.

In light of these issues, we respectfully request that you promptly provide answers to the following questions no later than March 21, 2025.

1. Deviation from Flood Safety Operating Rules
   • Who specifically gave the order to breach established flood safety rules for water releases? When was it given and why was it given? Did President Trump—or anyone in the White House—directly order the Corps to carry out these releases? Additionally, please detail the Department of Government Efficiency’s involvement in these efforts, if any.
2. Coordination with Local Authorities
   • Please provide the specific steps taken in advance to coordinate these releases with state and local government officials, local water managers, agricultural stakeholders, and public safety officials, including a list of all parties that were contacted prior to these releases, when they were contacted, and by whom they were contacted.
3. Impact on Water Usage
   • What are the objectives the release of this water are supposed to achieve and how will it be used to achieve those objectives? What considerations were made about the impact of these releases on critical municipal and agricultural water supply needs later this year? What considerations were made considering current drought protections and decreased snowpack estimates for the region? How will these releases meet their intended uses when it is likely that much of the released water will be lost to evaporation rather than put to beneficial use? What plan is in place to replenish the water supplies lost from this release?
4. Future Release Plans
   • Are similar actions being considered moving forward, and if so, what assurances can be provided that full coordination with local and state agencies will be maintained?

Press Contact

Mary Hurrell
(202) 225-5187

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