'Millions of lives at stake' if California can't save earthquake alert system from Trump's cuts, GOP lawmaker warns
In this hyper-partisan era, there may be one issue that unites California Democrats and Republicans: Earthquakes.
Elected officials from both parties have supported an earthquake early warning system for the West Coast that, after years of work, was scheduled to begin its first limited public operation next year.
But President Trump’s budget proposal calls for cuts that experts say would kill the warning network.
The next few months will determine whether officials on both sides of the aisle can come together to save it. One of the system’s biggest proponents is a Republican congressman who has an influential role in shaping the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey. The district of Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) lies on top of the San Jacinto fault, one of California’s most active.
Calvert has been joined by Democrats and Republicans across the West Coast urging a reversal of the funding cuts. Twenty-eight California state legislators, including the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate and Assembly, signed a letter to Calvert urging that Congress reject Trump’s proposal to end federal funding.
It remains uncertain whether they can succeed in a Republican-controlled Congress that doesn’t necessarily have much love for blue-leaning California and the West Coast.
But there is also this political and geologic reality: Most Californians live near an earthquake fault, and earthquake faults in California run through congressional districts represented by both Democrats and Republicans.
Key Republican voices strong support
In Washington, both Republican and Democratic members of Congress gave Ryan Zinke, secretary of the Interior, an earful at a hearing about the proposal to end the U.S. Geological Survey’s participation in the early warning system for the next budget year.
Congress allocated $10.2 million for the system for the current budget year. Trump’s budget for the next budget year proposes nothing.
Officials estimate it will cost $16.5 million a year to operate and maintain the system.
‘I live pretty close to a fault’
“This is a public warning program that will protect millions of lives and critical infrastructure,” Calvert, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on issues related to the Department of the Interior, told Zinke. “We’ve obviously spent a substantial amount of money into that program. California is very concerned about this. And I am, too. I live pretty close to a fault myself, so I certainly care about what we’re going to do on that.”
Scientists suspect that a joint rupture of the San Jacinto fault — the one underneath Calvert’s district — and San Andreas fault in 1812 triggered a magnitude 7.5 earthquake that destroyed Mission San Juan Capistrano’s Great Stone Church, killing more than 40 people attending Mass.
Democrats on the subcommittee were also critical. “It’s irresponsible,” said Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), the panel’s ranking Democrat. “The budget is unacceptable and I expect my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reject it.”
Critical seconds or minutes of warning
Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.) said early warnings are essential to protect his home state. Washington was part of a broad swath of the West Coast in 1700 that was inundated by a catastrophic tsunami after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit the Cascadia fault system in the Pacific Ocean, paralleling Northern California to Vancouver Island.
It was so powerful, entire sections of the Pacific coastline dropped by as much as 5 feet, allowing the ocean to rush in and leave behind dead trees by the shore; Native American stories told of “how the prairie became ocean,” and how canoes were flung into trees. The tsunami was so powerful that the Japanese have records of the destructive waves destroying homes and rice paddies along that nation’s east coast.
Early warning of an incoming earthquake and tsunami would save lives and give people more time to evacuate, such as for elementary school children to climb up to vertical evacuation centers high enough to avoid a tsunami.
By: Rong-Gong Lin II and Priya Krishnakumar
Source: Los Angeles Times