SoCal’s water buffalos cheer Department of Homeland Security and form a circle of silence. Where do they really stand on climate-change and D.E.I. ?
by John Earl, March 19, 2026, cross-posted from SoCalWaterWars (formerly Surf City Voice)
The Municipal Water District of Orange County (MWDOC) has seven elected members on its board of directors, three of whom it has appointed to sit on the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD)—which has 38 appointed, not elected, members. A fourth MWDOC appointee to the MWD board, Linda Ackerman, is not a member of the MWDOC board but regularly sits with its members at meetings.
MWD supplies water for 19 million SoCal residents in six counties, including MWDOC. MWDOC sells MWD’s imported water, which comes from Northern California (through the State Water Project) and the Colorado River, to its 27 Orange County member agencies serving 3.5 million residents.
MWDOC board of directors Feb 17, 2026. Photo by SoCal Water Wars
Given the political and ecological climate we now inhabit, it’s fair to ask our water agencies to explain their philosophy of water management.
And while the answer is rarely stated plainly, you can get a fuzzy but frightening glimpse of MWDOC and MWD’s standards by watching the video of MWDOC’s June 26, 2025 Water Policy Forum and Dinner honoring Troy Edgar, Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Under Secretary Kristi Noem, DHS—an umbrella department that oversees multiple federal law‑enforcement agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Border Patrol, as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—has, under the banner of national security, been widely documented by journalists, human‑rights organizations, and citizen videographers as carrying out racist, brutal, and indiscriminate actions against racially profiled immigrants and dissidents with impunity.
These operations have included what civil‑rights groups describe as unlawful detentions and “snatch‑and‑grab” style arrests (kidnappings), crackdowns on press freedom, unjustifiable beatings and shootings, and fatal uses of force that advocates rightly characterize as extrajudicial killings.
Thousands of non‑criminal adult and child migrants—and, in some documented cases, U.S. citizens and other lawful residents—have been held for weeks or months in harsh, overcrowded detention centers that led to at least 32 deaths since January 2025—a record number—including some operated without accountability by contractors in foreign countries, or deported under procedures that rights groups say are devoid of meaningful due process.
All of this began almost immediately after Donald Trump was sworn in as America’s 47th president on January 20, 2025, marking what he called the “Golden Age of America.”
MWDOC board of directors Feb 17, 2026. Photo by SoCal Water Wars
I watched MWDOC’s dinner forum honoring Troy Edgar on YouTube. Afterward, I wanted to ask MWDOC board president Larry Dick, who hosted the event, and MWD Chairman of the Board Adán Ortega, who also attended to honor Edgar, about the stark contradictions between both agencies’ stated goals in the Climate Adaptation Management Program (CAMP4W) and their mutual commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (D.E.I.), and the Trump administration’s federal ban on even mentioning climate science or social and economic justice.
On one hand, MWD and MWDOC officially promote climate‑change adaptation, equitable policies, and workplace D.E.I. On the other, the Department of Homeland Security under President Trump openly embraces climate denialism, is developing a secretive and unaccountable police force marked by brutality and racial targeting, and is working to eliminate D.E.I. across government and the private sector. The disconnect is hard to ignore.
As I reported previously, I made several unsuccessful attempts to get answers from members of the MWDOC Board of Directors and from MWD Chair Adán Ortega. Nothing has changed on that front. However, I did speak on the matter before the MWDOC board on February 17. You can view the video of my presentation and read the slightly edited transcript of my remarks below.
Before you do, I want to clarify one potentially misleading statement I made during my comments to the board. I said, “We are not a fascist country by any means, but we have a fascist‑style administration.”
What I meant was this: the Trump administration is unmistakably operating with the characteristics of a fascist regime, but—despite its efforts—the vast majority of voting citizens (according to polls) continue to reject MAGA‑fascism. In hindsight, though, I think U.S. Senator Chris Murphy’s (D‑CT) remarks in response to the administration’s attempts to curtail press freedom through the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) capture the point even more precisely:
“This is the federal government telling news stations to provide favorable coverage of the war or their licenses will be pulled. A truly extraordinary moment. We are not on the verge of a totalitarian takeover. We are in the middle of it.
“Act like it.”
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