Fact Check: Donald Trump’s Claims About LA Fires and Water

The wildfires in Los Angeles County sparked an outcry from President-elect Donald Trump, who accused Gov. Gavin Newsom of depriving Southern California of water. Trump today repeated a claim he has made in the past that the state’s 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 presented to him, which 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 currently burning in an almost 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 Statement — it is pure fiction,” Newsom’s 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 high 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, director of water scarcity 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 merely fan the flames of political discontent.

“To tie Bay-Delta management to devastating wildfires that have claimed lives and homes is nothing short of irresponsible and comes at a time when the Metropolitan Water District has the most water stored in its system in the agency’s history,” he said. “It’s not a question of enough water coming from Northern California to put out a fire. It’s about the continued devastating effects 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 doesn’t come from Northern California. It comes via the city’s 112-year-old aqueduct that flows 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 forwards water from the Colorado River and Delta to several local agencies. The city was the main motivating force behind 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 triggered Trump’s latest social media posts.

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

CalMatters reporter Alexei Koseff contributed to this story.