Trump’s water tweet baffles experts

When President Trump sent his first tweet about the current California wildfires, which have killed nine people and destroyed more than 1,000 homes, he chose the moment to zero in on water policy — leaving some scratching their heads.

“California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized,” he tweeted Sunday. “It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire spreading!”

Asked whether firefighters at the Carr and Mendocino Complex fires are short on water, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokeswoman Lynette Round replied, “Not that I’m aware of ... but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening.”

But the tweet had LeRoy Westerling, a UC Merced professor specializing in wildfire and climatology, chuckling.

“On the water side, it boggles the mind,” he said. “We do manage all of our rivers in California, and all the water is allocated many times over. So I’m not sure what he was recommending.

“Even if we eliminated all habitat for riparian species and fish, and allowed saltwater intrusion into the delta and set up a sprinkler system over the state, that wouldn’t compensate for greater moisture loss from climate change.”

Westerling said his version of a tweet explaining the severity of the wildfires would read: “Ongoing warming and accelerated climate change are driving unpredictable increases and extreme fire in California across a wide range of ecosystems.”