Wildfires and Water Management

In the midst of the unprecedented destruction of the greater Los Angeles wildfires, now should be a time of reflection, solidarity, and community support. For some; however, it has been an opportunity to throw tactless jabs at political adversaries, denigrate land and water management, and attack environmental protection measures. As the days rolled on from the onset of the Pacific Palisades and Eaton fires, President-Elect Trump and soon-to-be cabinet member Elon Musk made clear their criticisms of California’s handling of wildfire.


In his posts of Truth Social, President-Elect Trump made claims about California Governor Gavin Newsom’s refusal to sign a declaration that would allow water from rain and snowmelt in Northern California to be transported to other regions of the state, including the fire-affected areas of Los Angeles. Not only is the mentioned water declaration nonexistent, but Trump’s assertions rely on the erroneous idea that a lack of imported water into Southern California is the reason for the wildfire’s rapid spread.
Critics of California water policy have jumped onto this view, decrying the amount of water in the region to fight the fire, often citing empty fire hydrants as proof of unfilled reservoirs.

However, these claims are unfounded. Most local Los Angeles reservoirs are filled at higher than average levels for this time of the year, due in part to the high amounts of precipitation in recent years.
While the Santa Ynez reservoir in Pacific Palisades, with a capacity of 117 million gallons, was empty and undergoing repairs during the blaze, there has been no overall lack of water. Ultimately, dry hydrants can be attributed to city water infrastructure systems that are not suited to fight the gargantuan fires that these communities have faced. Overworked systems designed to deal with typical house fires were not able to keep up with the unprecedented demand that large-scale wildfires present.


By jumping to lambast lack of water imports, Trump and similar critics fail to recognize more significant contributions to the scale of the wildfires. Extremely dry conditions in Southern California have created conditions prime for the inferno witnessed across the greater Los Angeles area. Once started, these flames spread rapidly, fanned by strong Santa Ana winds that also prevented aerial water drops to fight the fires. In his posts on X, Elon Musk contended that climate conditions such as those witnessed in Southern California in recent months had little to do with the severity of the fires. Instead, he also blamed water allocations for the inability of firefighters to slow the spread. Climate experts disagree, arguing that the effects of fossil-fuel induced climate change will continue to create severe drought-like conditions that encourage megafires. Increasing water imports to Southern California would not stop those conditions, nor would they reduce the risk of wildfire.


These incredibly devastating wildfires should not be twisted into demands for more imported water into Southern California, nor should they be seen as proof of the necessity of the Delta Conveyance project. These demands ignore the significant losses of biodiversity in the Bay-Delta region that would result from the diversion of delta flows. Not only would this project have little impact on reducing fire risk in Southern California, but it would actively degrade the ecological health of delta regions.

As first responders continue to put out the wildfires around Los Angeles, the focus needs to remain on rebuilding the communities that have been impacted and looking ahead to the future. Now is not the time to spread misinformation about water management. If we want to prevent destruction from being the new normal, we need to create a tomorrow that is climate-resilient.


The author of this post is Jackson Goulding, Member of the Water Committee


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