Wednesday January 22, 2025
KQED —
Buried in a slew of executive actions President Donald Trump issued on his first day in office was a memo directing his administration to find ways to reroute more water from Northern California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the rest of the state.
It’s a sign that Trump, from the outset of his second term, plans to reignite a battle over California water policy. However, experts called the 254-word action thin and centered in political posturing, and said it highlights misinformation about water use in the Golden State.
In his executive action, titled “Putting People over Fish: Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California,” Trump describes actions taken by the state during his first term that he said halted his administration from moving more water south “allegedly in protection of the Delta smelt and other species of fish.” He accuses California of “wastefully” allowing water to flow into the Pacific Ocean and points to recent wildfires in Southern California as an example of why the region needs more water from the state’s north.
Jay Lund, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Davis, said the action is about Trump needing to “complain about California, and this gives him a reason without much reason.”