Fact check: Donald Trump’s claims about LA fires and water

The Los Angeles County wildfires triggered a rant from President-elect Donald Trump, who blamed Gov. Gavin Newsom for depriving Southern California of water. Trump today repeated a claim he has made in the past, that state efforts “to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt” have caused pain and hardship in California. 

“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 snow melt 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 today on his social media site Truth Social.  

Newsom’s office responded with a sharp rebuke and a reality check. 

“There is no such document as the water restoration declaration – that is pure fiction,” Newsom communications director Izzy Gardon said in a written statement. “The Governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need.”

The fires burning in Los Angeles County were fanned by severe winds and exacerbated by near-zero rainfall throughout Southern California. But sending more water south from the Bay-Delta would have done nothing to prevent them or extinguish them.

Mark Gold, water scarcity director for the Natural Resources Defense Council and a board member of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said Trump’s comments do not reflect California’s complex water supply systems and just fan flames of political discontent. 

“Tying Bay-Delta management into devastating wildfires that have cost people’s lives and homes is nothing short of irresponsible, and it’s happening at a time when the Metropolitan Water District has the most water stored in its system in the history of the agency,” he said. “It’s not a matter of having enough water coming from Northern California to put out a fire. It’s about the continued devastating impacts of a changing climate.”

Trump appeared to be referring to water imported south from the Bay-Delta, fed by Northern California rivers and snowmelt. But most Los Angeles water does not come from Northern California. It comes via the city’s 112-year-old aqueduct that runs from the Owens Valley east of the Sierra Nevada, not the Delta, as well as groundwater. The city also imports water from the Metropolitan Water District, which relays water from the Colorado River and Delta to numerous local agencies. The city was the main motivating force for the building of the Colorado River Aqueduct in the 1930s.

In December, the Biden administration and state officials agreed to a new long-term operating plan for the Delta water projects that effectively replaced rules produced by the first Trump administration in 2019 — an action that may have sparked Trump’s latest social media post.

The new rules adjust water allocations for cities and farms and attempt to restore depleted populations of salmon and other fish, including the endangered Delta smelt. Some Central Valley farmers and Southern California cities will see more water and have endorsed the plan, while some farmers will get less. Water exports from the Delta to the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California via the State Water Project increase under the new plan. 

CalMatters reporter Alexei Koseff contributed to this story.