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+--- Thread: Article LA fire: Checking JD Vance’s claim about California reservoirs (water supply design) (/thread-17211.html)
LA fire: Checking JD Vance’s claim about California reservoirs (water supply design) - C C - Jan 19, 2025
Vance: “Some of these (California) reservoirs have been dry for 15, 20 years."
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/jan/17/jd-vance/fact-check-have-some-california-reservoirs-been-cl/
EXCERPTS: During the height of fighting the Palisades fire on Jan. 7 and Jan. 8, water demand outpaced the amount of water flowing to hydrants, and some hydrants went dry. A nearby city reservoir was empty for repairs when the fire broke out, the Los Angeles Times reported Jan. 10.
[...] The Santa Ynez reservoir that supplies drinking water to Los Angeles’ local system has been empty since February 2024 because it needed repairs. The reservoir can hold up to 117 million gallons. But it’s managed by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, not the state, and it’s used primarily for drinking water.
Had the reservoir been full, it may have supplied more water pressure to the Pacific Palisades during the height of the firefighting and slowed the rate at which hydrants ran dry, said Steve Margulis, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering chair at the University of California, Los Angeles. But that reservoir hasn’t been closed for 15 years, so it’s unclear which reservoirs Vance was referring to.
California has close to 1,500 surface reservoirs, a 2018 Public Policy Institute of California Water Policy Center report said. Most are small and managed by local governments, said Jay Lund, the vice director of the Center for Watershed Sciences and a civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of California, Davis.
Some reservoirs are intentionally left at low levels or empty, Lund said, because they’re used for flood control. But those reservoirs fill during heavy rainfall to prevent flooding.
It’s possible that a local reservoir somewhere in the state has been shut down for several years, but we did not find an example, and President-elect Donald Trump and Vance’s transition team did not provide examples when PolitiFact reached out for comment.
"I am sure there are very small reservoirs that have been empty for some time, for one reason or another," said Thomas Harter, a hydrology professor at the University of California, Davis. "No major reservoirs have been empty for that long." Small reservoirs that serve local areas outside of Los Angeles have no relation to the city’s water system.
[...] State Water Project Deputy Director John Yarbrough said in a statement to PolitiFact that there are "no dry reservoirs in the State Water Project system." Most of the major reservoirs tracked by the California Department of Water Resources are at or above their historic average storage.
In a Jan. 12 interview with NBC News, Newsom rebutted Trump’s criticisms of Northern California water management and described Southern California’s reservoirs as "completely full." Although the nearby state reservoirs aren’t completely full, they’re close. The state-managed reservoirs in Southern California have stores above 75% of their total capacity.
[...] The Department of Water and Power in February 2024 shut down the Santa Ynez reservoir because of damage to its cover. The reservoir supplies drinking water to the city, so it’s subject to environmental regulations to prevent contamination.
The department said the repairs are "subject to the city charter’s competitive bidding process which requires time." The Los Angeles Times reported a $130,000 contract was issued to a Lakeside firm to repair the cover.
Upcoming investigations may determine that local government or management shortcomings contributed to a delay in repairing the reservoir. But the reservoir was shut down for less than a year, not 15 years or more. And it’s not indicative of a statewide problem with reservoirs... (MORE - details)