The former President’s plan to bring water to the California desert is, like a lot of his promises, a goofy pipe-dream.
In an apparent effort to address the pressing issue of California water shortages, Trump said the following: “You have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north with the snow caps and Canada, and all pouring down and they have essentially a very large faucet. You turn the faucet and it takes one day to turn it, and it’s massive, it’s as big as the wall of that building right there behind you. You turn that, and all of that water aimlessly goes into the Pacific (Ocean), and if they turned it back, all of that water would come right down here and right into Los Angeles,” he said.
Amidst his weird, almost poetic rambling, the “very large faucet” Trump seems to have been referring to is the Columbia River. The Columbia runs from a lake in British Columbia, down through Oregon and eventually ends up in the Pacific Ocean. Trump’s apparent plan is to somehow divert water from the Columbia and get it all the way down to Los Angeles. However, scientific experts who have spoken to the press have noted that not only is there currently no way to divert the water from the Oregon River to southern California, but creating such a system would likely be prohibitively expensive and inefficient.
The Columbia does not run through Oregon, it is the northern border of it from just south of Kennewick, Washington to the Pacific Ocean. The only US state that the Columbia actually flows through is Washington, which makes sense since the river starts in Canada, which is north of Washington, which is north of Oregon. Odd choice of verbiage.
The Columbia is the border between Washington and Oregon. Cross a bridge between the two states and you will see a welcome to Oregon/welcome to Washington sign in the middle of the bridge.
Yes, I know. As I said, it’s the northern border of the state between the Pacific and just south of Kennewick, Washington. But it does not flow through Oregon, as only the south bank is ever on Oregon land.
The Columbia enters Washington from the north and then becomes its southern border all the way to the ocean. Being entirely surrounded by Washington for part of its course, it is accurate to say that the Columbia flows through Washington. Since the Columbia only interacts with Oregon as its northern border, beginning and ending its interaction on the same side of the state, it can not be said to flow through Oregon.
But wait! What about Sauvie Island and the Columbia slough? Are those not examples of the Columbia flowing through Oregon? Yeah, but not on the same scale and there’s nothing on Sauvie Island except for corn mazes and naked people.