Praying for Rain: An Unchanging Truth
February 2, 2025
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
It’s safe to say things have changed some in the past few weeks. Things are always changing. The climate, world leaders, our position relative to the size of the universe as it expands – the only unchanging constant is God. The same; yesterday, today, forever. His faithfulness never changes, His knowledge of all never changes. He alone ultimately knows me and you and yet He stays totally in love with us.
The last series of messages I was involved with here on Praying for Rain was the topic of – not who to vote for – rather should we as Christians vote at all. We can gracefully set that one aside for the time being. And that time being will come around again soon enough in a year and a half or so.
Now, some of us have received what we wanted given the choices available. Personally, there have been some positives in having Donald Trump win verses his opponent. My outstanding accounts are starting to catch up and I’ve been to two large water events since the election and there is more optimism in the business side of the water world I’ve seen since before Covid. One gentleman shared with me his observation that within his first month of office Trump cured global warming. After all, he pointed out, didn’t it snow at my other home in Louisiana, literally the NWS declared a blizzard in St. Martin Parish. My wife said it dropped down to 8 degrees Fahrenheit and she had more than a foot of snow, less than 30 miles from the Gulf of ______ insert your choice – America or Mexico. Also, literally the State of Florida declared a falling iguana hazard due to low temperatures.
But not everything has been as smooth as could be. Most of us have seen the message sent over Truth Social attributed to Trump, “The United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond. The days of putting a Fake Environmental argument, over the PEOPLE, are OVER. Enjoy the water, California!!!”
First response for me was, “Oh really?” I suspect most of you had a similar response – we’re water folks after all. There was no federal military incursion into California and there is no valve or pump or any kind of conveyance linking our state to the waters of the Pacific Northwest. There are many untrue environmental arguments and the Army Corps of Engineers does operate many dams in California, but they were already here. (It’s so tempting to poke some fun at ACE’s more unmilitary traits, compare their speed of project completion to the US Postal Service’s 20-mule team delivery haste and you know, call it the Army Corpse of Engineers. But I won’t.)
Some other thoughts regarding that message. It wasn’t true. I don’t go to Snopes.com or Wikipedia for anything I’d consider accurate information. Snopes and other “fact checkers” most often referenced by mainstream media have proven shills. Wikipedia? The freshest opinion isn’t a good substitute for truth or beauty.
But I did take a looks at Snopes, couldn’t resist. It didn’t change my opinion. Snopes’ response was more convoluted than the original message. They don’t have a clue how the state is plumbed.
I’ve heard and have begun to adhere to the advice of taking Trump seriously but not literally. And had Biden made an analogous claim it would have been met with derision. I sorry it was so over the top but I think Trump’s goal was sucking the political oxygen out of the room so Newsom couldn’t gain traction. On that count it worked.
So, later in the week we were in Reno bowling as part of the festivities at the Mid Pacific Water Users Conference on a Thursday night when a rumor started moving through the crowd. A better storyteller could weave the rumor into the bizarreness of the setting. We were in a building capped by I’m guessing a 10-story tall geodesic dome representing a bowling ball. This place houses the bowling hall of fame, the world bowling museum and more than 100 lanes. A better storyteller would paint a word picture of the rumor spreading down the lanes in time to synchronized bowlers released their balls ala The Big Lebowski.
In reality I just happened to be bowling with some senior USBR managers and there were Kaweah River contractors in the next lane over. I’d heard earlier in the day about some mess with the Army Corps of Engineers but no one knew for sure what was going on. Until we/they did.
Someone don’t know who, from the Trump team, obviously as ignorant about water in California as newborn kitten. Someone who in my opinion needs to be kept away from issuing orders, ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to release water down the Kaweah and Tule Rivers and send it to Southern California. I was gob smacked. That’s the exact opposite of what should be done and even could be done to help anyone.
First, as you know, this is water being stored for the farmers to use this summer and fall to irrigate crops. Second, as you know, the water behind the dams on the Kaweah and Tule Rivers unchecked flows to the old Tulare Lake bed. Water could be pumped into the Friant Kern Canal on its way to the lakebed. In that case the released water could get as far south as just past Bakersfield. You can’t physically get water from these two rivers to Southern California without a series of transfers to the State Water Project to get it to the California Aqueduct to pump over the Tehachapi Range and into the Los Angeles Basin. That would take planning and coordination if for no other reason than there isn’t always room for extra capacity. Can’t just utter, “Make it so Number One”.
Before any dams or canals the Kaweah and Tule Rivers naturally flowed into the Tulare Lakebed and during very wet years flood waters could make their way to the San Joaquin River, through the Delta and out to the Pacific Ocean through the Golden Gate. Sending unexpected reservoir releases down the rivers, especially at the magnitude ordered could easily cause flooding. And on top of all of this there are water rights to that stored water. There are those in this state trying to redefine water rights as water privileges granted by the State of California. We don’t want to give them any precedent. You can’t just up and invalidate someone’s rights to something.
As I type this on a Sunday morning I don’t know how much water was released or where it ended up. I do know any and everyone connected to the President was involved with trying to stop the releases. Congressmen, former Congressmen, the former Secretary of the Interior and a limo full of lawyers were trying to get Trump to rescind that order to the Army Corps.
Here’s where this has left me (and if you’re tired of hearing my thoughts please submit yours for publication on Praying for Rain.) I’m disappointed this happened. It does call attention to the extremely under reported mess of state government water management in California, but it wasn’t a truthful or an intelligent response.
My fear is these unnecessary errors in judgement will weaken the case being made that the San Joaquin Valley will revert to a dusty low spot of poverty – a massive squandering of the most productive land on earth – to appease a cadre of far left/Marxists using the environment and their amorphous version of justice as a pretext to tear down freedom. Unless water policy drastically changes that is a very likely future for this Valley. I’m concerned with losing the momentum and bogging down in the mud of Trump made a dumb call therefore the Valley’s plight is illegitimate.
I’m wondering if some of you may feel this way. I suspect this is so. First sentence above paragraph second word, fear. Fear is usually my default for way too many things. What do we have to be afraid of? We know there will be change and we know God is not going to change. The Lord Jesus himself told us the truth will set us free. That’s not going to change. The truth is we have fallible humans running things here on Earth. The truth is people and things we want to support are fallible and full of unintended consequences. The truth is God already knew all about this. The truth is we can stand by the truth because it comes from an unchanging God who is true in all ways for eternity. That’s a lot of truth. That’s a lot of God. That’s a lot of reason for our hope.
God bless you all,
Don
