- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Summary
DOGE staffers Tyler Hassen and Bryton Shang tried pressuring the Bureau of Reclamation to open a California water pump to aid Los Angeles during January’s wildfires, though the system couldn’t reach the city.
When denied, they flew there to do it themselves but failed due to maintenance and access restrictions.
Critics called DOGE a “slapstick operation of 20-somethings they’re seeing as whiz kids but have zero knowledge.”
Trump later ordered dam releases, flooding farmland. Critics called DOGE’s actions reckless and uninformed.
Because the water would go where they want it to go. You just don’t understand where they want it to go or why.
You think they want it to go to where the fires are. That’s wrong.
They want it to go into the central valley to refill the giant lake and swamp ecosystem that used to be there.
They don’t care about the short-term needs of people who need to drink or put out fires or grow crops. They are making decisions entirely from the perspective of longtermism. They see restoring the central valley’s swamp ecosystem as the overwhelming long-term good, regardless of any short-term consequences.
Right idea, reckless implementation. It’s also not clear that just dumping as much water as possible into the central valley is the best way to restore the swamp ecosystem. So much of the valley’s hydrology and ability to retain water have been damaged since the cotton farmers drained the lake after the civil war. This is a restoration that needs to be done slowly and deliberately, both to not kill people who currently rely on that water and to manage the environmental impacts on the basin of suddenly reintroducing water that it’s spent 150 years adapting to live without.
I have not seen any evidence of this plan, nor any long-term planning from the administration in general. Can you support this claim?