(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to route more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other areas of the state “for use by the people there who desperately need a reliable water supply.”
“The recent deadly and historically destructive wildfires in Southern California underscore why the State of California needs a reliable water supply and sound vegetation management practices in order to provide water desperately needed there, and why this plan must immediately be reimplemented,” the memorandum reads.
Since the wildfires began Jan. 7, resulting from the unprecedented Santa Ana winds and climate “whiplash” over the past two years, Trump has stated that Southern California could have had more water supply under a plan proposed by him during his first presidential term.
“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snowmelt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is being paid.”
Newsom has said that not only is California pumping more water than it did under Trump’s presidency, but that the plan Trump proposed in 2019 would not have brought more water to Southern California as The Central Valley Project doesn’t provide water to Los Angeles, so it would not have been helpful in fighting the wildfires.
The state of California sued the Trump administration in 2020 over the plan as it would have conflicted with Newsom’s desire to protect endangered species, including Chinook salmon and Delta smelt. Trump titled his latest executive order, “Putting People Over Fish: Stopping radical environmentalism to provide water to Southern California.”
Fire hydrants going dry and water supply thinning in the Los Angeles area during the thick of the firefighting efforts was not due to a lack of supply, Newsom said, but the demand outpaced the city’s water infrastructure, which was not built to respond to large fires.
“Southern California’s water supplies are well-equipped to support local communities fighting the wildfires,” Newsom wrote on X. “Many of the state’s largest reservoirs are currently at or above their historic average storage levels for this time of year,” noting that the Diamond Valley Reservoir is at 97% of total capacity, Castaic is at 77%, Casitas is at 96% and Cachuma is at 89%.
“Under the Trump administration’s 2019 biological opinions, which help safeguard and protect species such as the Delta smelt, the state was required to hold back on pumping in even larger quantities as compared to the current policies under the Biden administration,” a news release from the governor’s office said. “This is because the Trump administration’s biological opinions used outdated methods, blocking the transport of water in greater quantities and for longer periods of time, rather than allowing local water managers to temporarily slow water transport based on current water conditions.”
Under the Trump administration in 2019, 2,000 cubic feet per second was pumped, there was at least five days of reduced flow and there was a loss of 13,200 acre-feet of water, the governor’s office said. Under President Joe Biden’s administration in 2024, 3,500 cubic feet per second was pumped, there was at least two days of reduced flow and there was a loss of 6,400 acre-feet of water, it added.
Neither Newsom nor Attorney General Rob Bonta have announced if they will repeat their efforts from 2019 and pursue litigation against the Trump administration.
