In an attempt to resurrect a policy dispute with California Governor Gavin Newsom, President-elect Donald Trump has used the terrible wildfires in Los Angeles to make a number of accusations that experts claim are untrue or misleading.
Trump blamed Newsom this week for the flames, which have burnt over 10,000 buildings, forced 180,000 people to evacuate, and killed at least 10 people.
I’m going to insist that this inept governor let gorgeous, pure, and fresh water flow into California! Trump tweeted on his social media site, Truth Social, on Wednesday that he is to blame for this.
Due to firefighters’ efforts to suppress a major fire in the Pacific Palisades, some fire hydrants momentarily dried up, raising concerns about water availability in recent days.
However, according to three specialists in water policy, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power filled all available storage tanks for water facilities before the flames, therefore the issue wasn’t with the water supply.
Instead, they said that the city’s water infrastructure was ill-prepared to combat large flames.
The water department blamed high demand on the system for the problem after the hydrants dried up. It said that the department’s inability to promptly refill tanks caused the pressure to drop and made it difficult for water to reach hydrants in the hills. When the fire began, a reservoir in the Palisades that might have assisted with water pressure was also non-operational.
Water flow to hydrants was further delayed by electrical failures. In a public speech on Thursday, President Joe Biden stated that utilities cut off power because they were worried about starting further fires, which caused problems for water pumps. According to him, Cal Fire is coming in generators to restart these pumps.
It’s simple to mistakenly attribute these problems to water scarcity, according to Newsha Ajami, chief development officer for research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
I can see how you might not be familiar with every facet of this system if you’re not a water person in the traditional sense, she added.
A plan proposed during Trump’s first administration to divert additional water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in Northern California to Central Valley farmland and Southern California cities appears to be the subject of some of his criticism.It was opposed by the Newsom administration on the grounds that it would jeopardize fish species in the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers.
Experts claim that the latest fires in California, which were caused by strong winds and an extended dry spell, are unrelated to the controversy.
It would be really reckless to essentially bind those two together. According to Mark Gold, director of water shortage solutions at the Natural Resources Defense Council, it’s like adding gasoline to an already burning fire. In 2020, when the governor and Trump disagreed over the Delta plan, Gold was employed in Newsom’s administration. According to some experts, wildfires are caused by harsh weather patterns and infrastructure that isn’t designed to deal with them.
“We have record storage as we speak,” Gold, who is currently on the board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said, referring to the abundance of readily available water in the area’s reservoirs.
Local aquifers and imported water from the Colorado River, Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, and Owens River in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains are among the many sources of water used in Los Angeles County.
“There’s a fairly rigorous process to allocate water based on availability at any given year, looking at what’s in storage and being able to evaluate how much water can be used this year versus what we need to save in case we have a drought next year,” Erik Porse, director of the California Institute for Water Resources, explained.
Trump, meanwhile, has charged that Newsom is limiting those allotments to Southern California.
According to a letter Trump wrote on Wednesday, Governor Gavin Newscum declined to sign the water restoration declaration that would have permitted millions of gallons of water from the North’s excess rain and snowmelt to flow daily into many parts of California, including the regions that are currently burning in a manner that is almost apocalyptic.
“Newsom didn’t care about the people of California,” Trump said, “but he wanted to protect an utterly useless fish called a smelt by giving it less water (it didn’t work!).
In 2020, the Newsom administration filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for its failure to safeguard the smelt species. However, Izzy Gardon, the director of communications for Newsom, stated in a statement that the water restoration declaration is a work of complete fiction.
Gardon noted that the governor is concerned with ensuring firemen have all the resources they require, safeguarding people, and avoiding political interference.
When NBC News asked the Trump transition team which declaration Trump was referring to, they did not reply.
In December, the Biden administration and California authorities reached an agreement on a new water distribution plan. The plan reduces water exports to certain San Joaquin Valley farmers while increasing Delta water exports to Southern California.
Trump criticized Biden for problems supplying water to fire zones in addition to criticizing Newsom.
There is no money in FEMA and no water in the fire hydrants. JOE BIDEN IS LEAVING ME WITH THIS. JOE, THANK YOU! Trump stated on Truth Social on Wednesday.