Some politicians and influential people believe that the wildfires that have ravaged the Los Angeles region this week are caused by a little fish known as the Delta smelt.
Prominent individuals, such as President-elect Donald Trump, have stated that regulations pertaining to the endangered Delta smelt have an impact on the amount of water that can be extracted from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta’s fish habitat. They stated that this is the reason why firemen fighting to put out the fires are having trouble getting water. Due to excessive demand, three water tanks and a few fire hydrants temporarily lost water on Tuesday, according to municipal officials.
The several flames that have burnt over 45 square miles of the city as of Thursday, forcing over 180,000 people from their homes, are not solely the fault of the little fish. Diversity, equity, and inclusion, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s immigration policies, and the impact of billionaires on climate change policy have all been questioned by others.
It’s unclear what started the fires, and experts warn that some of the accusations being made online are inaccurate or ignorant given the lack of trustworthy evidence. They argue that all of them overlook the intricate factors that contributed to the fires’ spread and the sophisticated approaches needed to deal with future urban wildfires of a similar nature.
One of the most prominent leaders to criticize the Delta smelt was Trump, who wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday that Newsom had declined to sign the water restoration declaration that would have permitted millions of gallons of water to enter California, including the regions that are currently burning in a manner that sounds almost apocalyptic. Trump wrote, “He didn’t care about the people of California, but he wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt by giving it less water (it didn’t work!).” The ultimate cost is now being incurred. I’m going to insist that this inept governor let gorgeous, pure, and fresh water flow into California! He bears responsibility for this. In addition, there is no water for fire hydrants or firefighting aircraft. A real catastrophe!
Izzy Gardon, Newsom’s director of communications, responded by accusing Trump of engaging in political maneuvering.
Gardon stated on Tuesday that the water restoration announcement is a work of pure fiction. The governor’s priorities are ensuring firemen have all the resources they require, protecting people, and avoiding political interference.
Trump wasn’t the only one who blamed the smell of the Delta. Trump pardoned Republican operative Roger Stone for several criminal charges. On Wednesday, Stone posted a picture of the smelt on Xon, captioning it, “This is the fish that Gavin Newscum burned California down to save.”
Actor James Woods, whose Pacific Palisades home was destroyed by fire, took issue with Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley’s reference to DEI in her bio on the department’s website. Woods wrote on X next to a picture of Crowley’s final line, “Refilling the water reservoirs would have been a welcome priority too, but I guess she had too much on her plate promoting diversity.” According to the paragraph, Chief Crowley is appreciative of the chance to work for the City of Los Angeles and is committed to establishing, fostering, and advancing a culture that values diversity, inclusion, and equity while working to meet and surpass community expectations.
In the past year, Republicans have made it a predictable political strategy to criticize DEI programs following or during high-profile news events. They have done this in response to everything from bridge collapses to midair mishaps.
According to some, Newsom also failed to replenish California’s reservoirs, which resulted in the water being released into the ocean.
Tech mogul Elon Musk, the owner of X, concurred with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ post claiming that the fires are a part of a greater globalist scheme to deindustrialize the US and conduct economic war before causing complete collapse.
According to experts, the most of the takes are erroneous or miss the mark, and they provide no space for discussions on practical ways to address the escalating natural disasters.
Faith Kearns, director of research communications at Arizona State University’s Arizona Water Initiative and co-author of a 2021 UCLA report on wildfire and water supply in California, stated, “I don’t think the blame game is useful.”
“I don’t think there is individual blame to go around at all because this is a really complex, complicated, and emergent issue that hasn’t been on the radar for most people,” she added. Drought, climate change, and extremely strong winds were the extraordinary fire conditions that we are witnessing in Los Angeles.
According to Kearns, one of the conclusions drawn from the 2021 research she co-authored was that it’s not apparent who would begin addressing problems with wildfire-related water management. According to her, there are thousands of water providers in California, for instance, and some of them lack adequate funding.
Is it their problem to attempt to resolve? Is the fire department involved? Is it a city or a county? “I said,” she said. I get the impression that we also don’t know where to place the blame because we don’t even know who is solely to blame for all of these issues.
We are fighting a wildfire with urban water infrastructure, and that is incredibly tough, said Janisse Quiones, head engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, in a statement cited by Kearns.
According to Kearns, such comment draws attention to a significant problem: specialists are still working out how to deal with the fact that wildland fires have only recently begun to spread into urban areas in the last ten to fifteen years.
According to her, there are wildland firefighters and agencies and urban firefighters and agencies, which is how firefighting has always been conducted. Are urban fires being fought by wildland firefighters, or the other way around? Additionally, the methods can differ greatly at times.
According to experts, the blame game not only propagates false information but also ignores the subtleties of dealing with urban flames.
According to the California Department of Water Resources website, the majority of the state’s major reservoirs are at or above their historic levels for this time of year, according to Caleb Scoville, an assistant professor of sociology at Tufts University who specializes in the dynamics of environmental controversies. In response to accusations that neither Newsom nor Crowley refilled reservoirs in Southern California, he emphasized that this was particularly accurate.
Scoville continued by saying that politicians, including Trump, have frequently attributed California’s environmental issues to the Delta smelt in particular. The amount of water that can be pumped at a given time from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which is the center of California’s water distribution system, is occasionally impacted by policies that protect smelt and other species, such as salmon, according to Scoville. However, this is not a factor that is relevant to the wildfire situation or Los Angeles’ capacity to manage the wildfires.
Regarding Trump’s accusations against the smelt, Scoville said, “It plays to a long-standing trope that liberals, people in cities, people in places like California, or environmentalists care more about small, uncharismatic species than they care about their fellow Americans.” He also called the accusations a diversion from the climate crisis and the complexities of California’s water policy.
According to him, it’s a means of transforming a collection of tangible environmental issues into a sort of cultural conflict. Since it aims to divide people, it may yield temporary political gains, but it undermines our capacity to address grave environmental issues.