The US Secret Service and US military engineers are facing scrutiny after Adam Schiff, the California senator, demanded they answer questions about the Trump administration’s recent decision to change the water level of a lake in Ohio to facilitate a family boating trip for JD Vance on his birthday.
The Secret Service has said that it requested the outflow of the Caesar Creek Lake in Ohio be changed shortly before the vice-president’s 2 August trip so that his security detail could safely navigate the Little Miami River, which the lake feeds into. The story was first reported by the Guardian last week.
The Secret Service also said that neither Vance nor his staff knew that it had made the request.
In a letter to Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, and army corps of engineers leadership, Schiff suggested the use of funds to alter the outflow of the lake for personal use may have been inappropriate, and said he wanted information on the process and documentation of the decision.
“The misuse of public water resources for the vice-president’s family is particularly offensive considering this administration’s cuts to federal agencies, cuts which are already harming outdoor recreation opportunities for American families,” Schiff wrote.
The Guardian reported last week that was not unprecedented for military engineers in Louisville, Kentucky, who have jurisdiction over the area, to modify water outflows to accommodate public use – for example, for use in community river events and training for emergency responders.
Regulations regarding requests for so-called “deviations” – or any changes to normal practices – require approval and documentation that demonstrates why the deviation is justified. This process also ensures that risks associated with any deviation – including a flood risk or other environmental impact – is detailed.
The USACE said in a statement last week that the Secret Service request “met the operational criteria outlined in the Water Control Manual for Caesar Creek Lake and did not require a deviation from normal procedures”.
But in his letter, Schiff accused the army corps leadership of improperly leveraging access to public services for personal use and waiving standard documentation that is required to identify and justify risks associated with the deviation.
“Accordingly, I request an explanation of this USACE action and a commitment to no longer using federal resources for such unjustified and frivolous purposes,” Schiff wrote.
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The California Democrat also pointed to the Trump administration’s “frivolous release” of billions of gallons of water from California reservoirs as another instance in which the army corps executed “questionable abuses”. The water was released following an executive order from the White House for the alleged purpose of helping to fight the Los Angeles fires, though the army corps allegedly and reportedly knew the release would not be delivered to southern California directly.
Vance’s communications director, Will Martin, has defended the canoe trip in an article on Breitbart, saying Democrats were trying to “turn it into a story about elitism”. He accused Democrats who were critical of Vance for benefiting from public infrastructure for his birthday trip of having “no clue how normal families operate” and that the idea of a family canoeing together is “completely foreign to them”.
“The far-left media is desperate to smear Vice-President Vance and they’ve hit a new low by attacking him for enjoying his birthday with his wife and kids,” Martin said, referring to the Guardian.
