In California, is water from the north diverted into the Pacific Ocean?

Question

Possibly addressing the Californian wildfires, president Donald Trump claims that in California "water coming from the north" is "being diverted into the Pacific Ocean".

Governor Jerry Brown must allow the Free Flow of the vast amounts of water coming from the North and foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Can be used for fires, farming and everything else. Think of California with plenty of Water - Nice! Fast Federal govt. approvals.

_{—Donald J. Trump, 7:43 pm · 6 Aug 2018}

Finding a list of rivers of California is pretty easy. The accompanying map shows that while not strictly from the north, a lot of rivers in California do flow from the northeast, which can be interpreted as "north".

Are these diverted into the Pacific Ocean?

Alternatively, is there any other water coming from the north that is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean?

Does California have "vast amounts of water coming from the North", "being diverted into the Pacific Ocean"?

The implied claim that these supposed diversions are in any way hindering firefighting in the region, has already been addressed elsewhere.

"Diverted" is an odd term too. You don't have to divert a river in California to get it to flow into the Pacific Ocean - it does that all by itself. (With [some exceptions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truckee_River)). — Nate Eldredge, Aug 10 '18 at 16:14
Almost all of northern California is in the Pacific Ocean watershed. It is typically the water that *doesn't* make it to the Pacific Ocean that is being "diverted". — mob, Aug 10 '18 at 18:14
This question would be better to ask on Politics SE, as this a highly politicized issue (North vs. South and Dem. vs. Rep.) that has been fought for decades. The quoted text misleadingly simplifies a very complex issue for political purposes, while the title question can be answered geographically. — user3169, Aug 10 '18 at 18:30
@user3169 I'm not interested in the political implications; I'm actually interested in the geographical / ecological claim. Living in Europe, I'm not up to date on Californian geography, but I find it hard to believe rivers are being _diverted_ into the Pacific Ocean. — SQB, Aug 10 '18 at 20:32
@SQB At some level that becomes an https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/ question. The other quirk to this is that even holding back 100% of the flow to the ocean likely wouldn't meet the state's desires (especially in dry years), since more plentiful water allows farmers to use more marginal land and grow more water-intensive crops. — jeffronicus, Aug 10 '18 at 20:50
If you are not interested in the political implications, then you should not use an unsourced political reference to base an earth sciences question on. — user3169, Aug 10 '18 at 21:50
@user3169 but it's not an earth sciences question; it's a question about a _claim_. A claim about (a part of) the USA, made by the President of the USA. — SQB, Aug 10 '18 at 22:06
@user3169 You're probably right that this could also be asked on SE.Politics, and as jeffronicus suggested, SE.EarthScience. 'course, it works here, too. I guess that asking the same question on different SE's can give it different connotations; here, it's more about how true/false the claim might be. On SE.Politics, a good answer might comment on the political background of the topic. On SE.EarthScience, a good answer might discuss the issue at a more technical level. — Nat, Aug 12 '18 at 18:24
note: the water he's talking about is northern Californian water diverted through aqueducts to southern Californian basins and from there into the ocean if and when those basins are full. — jwenting, Aug 13 '18 at 10:28
That fact that it is the President making this claim, sadly, in no way lends any kind of factual authority to the claim. In fact, if you look at the track record for making accurate statements, in general, let alone getting science right, the opposite would be the case. — PoloHoleSet, Aug 13 '18 at 20:03
@PoloHoleSet no factual authority indeed, but authority (at least to some) nonetheless. That's why I'm asking; to establish the facts behing his statement. — SQB, Aug 14 '18 at 08:35

score 27 · Answer 1 · edited Aug 13 '18 at 13:28

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Not an authoritative source , just a blogger, but a decent attempt to explain some of the cali water issues that's reasonably well sourced itself.

California receives a total of 80 million acre-feet [99 km³] of water per year. Of those, 23 million [28 km³] are stuck in wild rivers (the hydrological phenomenon, not the theme park). These aren’t dammed and don’t have aqueducts to them so they can’t be used for other things.

...

14 million acre-feet [17 km³] are potentially usable, but deliberately diverted to environmental or recreational causes. These include 7.2 million [8.9 km³] for “recreational rivers”, apparently ones that people like to boat down, 1.6 million [2.0 km³] to preserve wetlands, and 5.6 million [5.9 km³] to preserve the Sacramento River Delta. According to environmentalists, this Sacramento River Delta water is non-negotiable, because if we stopped sending fresh water there the entire Sacramento River delta would turn salty

...

It's possible that the claim is based on something like the view pushed by the wall street journal

The Wall Street Journal says that farms are a scapegoat for the water crisis, because in fact the real culprits are environmentalists. They say that “A common claim is that agriculture consumes about 80% of ‘developed’ water supply, yet this excludes the half swiped off the top for environmental purposes.” But environmentalism only swipes half if you count among that half all of the wild rivers in the state – that is, every drop of water not collected, put in an aqueduct, and used to irrigate something is a “concession” to environmentalists. A more realistic figure for environmental causes is the 14 million acre-feet [17 km³] marked “Other Environmental” on the map above, and even that includes concessions to recreational boaters

Conclusion: Sorta.

It may depend on what you consider diverted to mean, if you only count when you divert water out of a river and into an aqueduct then release it somewhere else like into another river or wetlands that eventually sees it enter the ocean then this only seems to happen to a relatively small amount of water.

If you count water that you could easily divert at the press of a button to other uses like agriculture but instead allow to remain in the rivers flowing into the ocean then a larger fraction would count.

If you use a very broad version where you count overarching political choices about where to build dams and aqueducts and choices about economy vs ecosystem (which I believe would be an unreasonably broad interpreation) then you might count most fresh water that you allow to flow into the ocean.

Even the strict interpretation where you only count actual physical diversions include a few percent of cali's water which is a lot of water in absolute terms or relative to cali urban use.

edited Aug 13 '18 at 13:28

gerrit

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answered Aug 10 '18 at 10:28

Murphy

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Farmers? Environmentalists? I'd say they're both people of the population. – Aug 10 '18 at 15:01
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Your two quotes contradict each other: the first one essentially claims that yes, there’s water being diverted. The second one explains that, no, these “diversions” are called *wild rivers*. I intensely dislike that you call this explanation “pushing a view”. – Konrad Rudolph Aug 10 '18 at 15:08
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@KonradRudolph: I see no contradiction. They are both saying precisely the same thing about the same 14 million acre-feet of water. – Kevin Aug 10 '18 at 15:15
@Kevin Most of that does *not* go into the sea. – Konrad Rudolph Aug 10 '18 at 15:19
@Konrad: No opinion there, but you said the quotes "contradict each other," and that is not the case. – Kevin Aug 10 '18 at 15:40
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@KonradRudolph 14 MAF of Other Environmental” and 23 MAF of "wild rivers" are separate categories. "wild rivers" are just the normal rivers where that water hasn't been diverted from. The 14 MAF includes water that's been diverted that may end up being diverted into other rivers such as recreational rivers or into wetland that it's decided needs more water. – Murphy Aug 10 '18 at 15:41
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@Murphy It would nevertheless be nice to make clear what part of that is relevant for the questioned claim. Because most clearly isn’t, and the answer, *as it stands*, seems highly misleading. It misled me and whoever upvoted my comment. – Konrad Rudolph Aug 10 '18 at 16:03
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@KonradRudolph I've added some some more and the figure to try to make it more clear. – Murphy Aug 10 '18 at 16:32
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@Murphy can you add an actual conclusion as well? As it currently stands, your answer is mainly a bunch of quotes. – SQB Aug 10 '18 at 17:30
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Meh. It might be industry jargon (or might no, I don't know), but the use of the word "diverted" to describe water going where it would have gone without human intervention is ... manipulative? I mean, it's the water that is taken from it's natural flow patterns and channeled for human use that is being "diverted". And that might be the right thing to do, but the to use the word in the opposite sense is disingenuous. – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Aug 10 '18 at 23:59
@KonradRudolph Where does it go then? As I understand it, most rivers eventually lead to the sea... – Tin Wizard Aug 11 '18 at 04:26
@Walt Rivers do. Other water … evaporates, gets stored, you name it. Of course much of it will eventually end in the ocean but (1) it would have done that anyway, and (2) it wasn’t *diverted* to the ocean. The whole tweet was an inane lie. Attempts to make it seem as anything are simply disingenuous. Hence why I have to downvote this answer after all: the only correct, non-misleading answer here is a categorical “no”. – Konrad Rudolph Aug 11 '18 at 09:46
@KonradRudolph as indicated by the lack of acceptance, I might be interested in a well-sourced categorical "no". (Actually, I'm interested in a well sourced _anything_; I'm not looking for a "no" per se). As [I've told the answerer](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/41989/in-california-is-water-from-the-north-diverted-into-the-pacific-ocean#comment182473_41990), I think this answer lacks a conclusion. – SQB Aug 11 '18 at 14:16
This answer currently ends with **"_Note:_"**, but then the answer just stops without actually noting anything. Dunno if **"_Note:_"** was supposed to be before the image or if there was some text that didn't end up getting posted? – Nat Aug 12 '18 at 19:59
@SQB Apologies, I intended to add a sentence after the "note" briefly summarizing but must have got distracted. I think Konrad is partly right... but that there's a few kinda-sane-ish interpretations in line with common (anti environmentalist) viewpoints though even the strict interpretation where you only count actual physical diversions include a few percent of cali's water which is a **lot** of water in absolute terms or relative to cali urban use. – Murphy Aug 13 '18 at 10:12
The statement Mr. Trump made is about water being diverted to the south from northern Californian rivers and lakes through aqueducts and into reservoirs. A lot of it ends up in the ocean from there after being used to water the lawns in Los Angeles and San Diego (or just because the reservoirs are filled to capacity and spillways let it go to the sea). – jwenting Aug 13 '18 at 10:30
@jwenting have you been to Los Angeles or San Diego? If you have, it should be evident that close to 100% of water used for lawns in those places evaporates into the atmosphere. – phoog Aug 14 '18 at 17:34
@phoog apparently not as much as you might think. Paper uses data from florida wind tunnel tests but Evaporation Loss appears surprisingly low in the single digit percent. https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/AE/AE04800.pdf presumably quit a fraction ends up in the water table. – Murphy Aug 15 '18 at 10:51
@Murphy Florida is significantly more humid than California, and the water table is significantly closer to the surface. Furthermore, the file you link to concerns evaporation that "occurs from water droplets as they are sprayed through the air." But most of the water that lands on the ground (in the southwest, at least) will evaporate from the ground into the atmosphere. Some of it will be taken up by a plant's roots and incorporated into sugar molecules. I can't imagine any of it reaching the ocean unless there's a rain storm shortly before or after it's sprayed on the ground. – phoog Aug 15 '18 at 14:56
@Murphy (Spongebob voice) "4 years later" I was looking through old questions of mine. If you could add a conclusion, I think I would accept this answer. – SQB Apr 07 '22 at 13:52

In California, is water from the north diverted into the Pacific Ocean?

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