“Forget It, Jake. It’s Chinatown”

Among his first acts after being inaugurated, President Trump took two major actions that amount to a federal takeover of California’s water, not including potential impacts on Colorado River management efforts from his executive order halting the disbursement of funds from the Inflation Reduction Act.

The most recent action made news because of a post that President Trump made on Truth Social. On January 27, 2025, he posted, “The United States military has just entered the Great State of California, and under emergency powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond…” (emphasis in the original). There is no lack of rebuttals to his statement. Water managers pointed out there was no military takeover. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), owns and operates the dams in California’s Central Valley (i.e. they are engineers, and they were already here), made an operation decision to release water from two dams in Tulare County. There is some conflict about why the water was released. The California Department of Water Resources claimed on X that water was released because USACE turned on pumps that had been down for maintenance, while water managers in the Central Valley indicate that they were unprepared for sudden flows, suggesting that the release was made on Trump’s order. In addition, water in the Central Valley does not come from the Pacific Northwest. Finally, while it does not appear in the President’s post, the action was cast as getting necessary water to fire-scorched Southern California. Not only was the water not needed in Southern California, it went farmland in the Central Valley not to the Los Angeles area. The action was at best ill-advised and a bad decision (but it smells of subterfuge and false flags).

In a more discreet but more impactful action, on January 24, 2025, President Donald Trump issued a presidential memorandum directing the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with other department heads, to restart work from his first administration to direct more water from the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the state.

President Trump chastises the state for taking steps to prevent him from single-handedly overhauling a water management system. He argues that stopping his administrations previous efforts was done to protect the Delta smelt and other fish and that the water that would have been released to Southern California “flows wastefully into the Pacific Ocean.”

He continued his order by citing the recent wildfires in Southern California as case-in-point for why the state needs a more reliable water supply.

“The recent deadly and historically destructive wildfires in Southern California underscore why the State of California needs a reliable water supply and sound vegetation management practices in order to provide water desperately needed there, and why this plan must immediately be reimplemented,” he stated.

A previous report that I wrote on California’s water supply addresses the fallacy of that argument. Zeroing in on the fish when criticizing water management system in California’s Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta is specious, and the President’s recent delve into California water amounts to an unnecessary and unjustified federal takeover of California’s water supplies.

It's Not About Fish vs. People

One small fish that lives in the Delta gets the lion’s share of the attention: the Delta smelt. It was listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act in March 1993. California followed suit and listed it under the California Endangered Species Act in December of that same year (during Pete Wilson’s administration as governor). The state changed the Delta smelt’s status to “endangered” in 2009 (during Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration as governor). Operations of the federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project are determined by federal and state laws and regulation, including a perennially challenged federal Biological Opinion.

The Delta smelt has been the lightning rod for any dissatisfaction with water project operations at the Delta least since its 1993 listing as a “threatened” species, but it is not the only species with “special status” that impacts operations at the Delta. According to the Water Education Foundation, the Delta is a 1,153-square mile river delta and estuary east of where Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers flow into Suisun Bay and is home to over 250 species that are protected by state or federal law. Overall, there are 100 wildlife species, 140 plant species, and 13 fish species, including the endangered winter-run and threatened spring-run Chinook salmon. Chinook salmon are a primary food source for orcas. (There aren’t orcas in the Delta, but they do make appearances in San Francisco Bay when food sources are abundant).

The argument that fish are being prioritized over people is not new. I’ve heard that refrain for the 25 years that I’ve worked in this field, and I’m certain it wasn’t new then because the governing policies weren’t new. In some cases, actions are taken to protect these species (like turning off pumps at certain times of year when fish congregate near them or controlling how much fresh water is sent through the Delta at a given time in order to keep flow and nutrient levels appropriate for salmon fry), but the benefits are much larger and more holistic than the survival of fish.

There have been proposals to construct projects that would move water from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers to the federal and state water projects in way that bypasses the Delta. Proposals for a peripheral canal that would have conveyed the water around the periphery of the Delta date back to the 1940s. A ballot initiative for such a project was defeated by voters in 1982. In 2016, the idea was resurrected and revised in a plan to build two tunnels that would convey water under the Delta. The plan was subsequently scaled down to a single tunnel and a much lower volume of water and is now pending questions of financing (who’s going to pay for it). It is also tied up in litigation (due to lawsuits brought by tribes, fishery groups, environmental advocates, and grassroots groups concerned with protecting local water supplies and water quality).

The plaintiffs in those lawsuits argue that there is no plan to address the negative impacts of the project. A wider group that includes the plaintiffs, along with other similar groups and the cities in the Delta region, have publicly voiced opposition to the tunnel project citing water quality degradation and construction-related disruptions to the communities. Construction for such a project is projected to take a decade.

It's not an issue of fish vs. people, but one of people vs. people. People live in Northern California and the Delta region, and this water affects their survival and their livelihoods. Why that fact has gotten overlooked or obscured is simple: politics.

I am somewhat using the term “politics” in the tongue-in-cheek, pejorative since, but am also looking at an actual definition—one in which “politics” is a means of distribution. I taught Introduction to American Government at community colleges in California. One of the first lessons covers some key vocabulary—power, authority, legitimacy, politics, etc. The definition of “politics” was adopted from a 1936 book by political scientist Howard Lasswell and is well-suited to explain the development, change, and implementation of public policy, including water management in California. Politics was defined as determining “who gets what, when, and how.”

A Primer on Water Rights Administration

In the arid western United States, periods of dry hydrology and drought present water managers with complex challenges. But these climatic phenomena are hardly new. As the settlers in the west encountered water supply reductions, the priority system of water rights administration—also known as “first in time; first in right”—was developed to provide an objective means to allocate scarce water resources during shortages. This priority system became the bedrock of water laws in the west. During the period of western expansion, the United States was an agrarian nation. Everyone was using the water for roughly the same purpose—which made the priority administration of water rights a straightforward process.

The modern era, however, has a more vexing situation. Multiple classes of users contribute to economic productivity and growth. Social mores dictate that municipal and domestic water suppliers get enough water to meet human health and safety needs—regardless of the priority of their water rights—and require actions to mitigate or prevent ecosystem damage from water supply development. Philosophical positions give rise to questions about what are the best and right uses of our limited water supplies. The situation is further complicated by population growth, which will drive increases in demand, and climate change, which will further constrain supplies.

Despite the challenges presented by changes in water use in the modern, the priority system remains the backbone of water rights administrations with a caveat for human health and safety (i.e. municipal and industrial [M&I] users are guaranteed enough water to meet human health and safety needs regardless of priority). The questions of what is the best and right uses of water and how meet future demands are generally handled through other methods, including market mechanisms, litigation, and innovation.

The federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project—the projects that move water from the Delta into Central and Southern California—are junior water rights holders.

As a matter of optics, it appears that President Trump is using his power to favor his MAGA supporters in the Central Valley … despite the water project’s standing in the priority system and the priority system’s track record as a longstanding, suitable, and accepted means of distributing water throughout the west.

It’s Not Wasteful

The second part of President Trump’s allegation—his claim that the state’s action to halt his plan is allowing an enormous volume of water to flow “wastefully into the Pacific Ocean”—is also false. Anytime we stop nature from doing what nature does, anytime was stop a river from flowing, there are consequences … to people.

Because of the intertwining of water, environment, and economic activity, the impacts of dewatering or drastically reducing the flow of a river are complex. Think about what would happen to a whale-watching business if we don’t take steps to ensure that our human activities, our engineering of a water system, don’t prevent salmon migrations. More direct would be how the loss of salmon impacts salmon fishers. Also think about the impact on agriculture when a river is no longer spreading soil nutrients in an alluvial fan as it approaches its terminus. And most simply, when water is diverted or impounded, it is no longer available to downstream users nor to those that get their water from hydrologically connected sources.

Consider that case of Owens Valley

Long before the development of the California State Water Project in the 1960s and even the construction of Parker Dam (Lake Havasu) and Hoover Dam (Lake Mead) on the Colorado River in the 1930s, a growing Los Angeles needed to increase its water supply. Los Angeles Mayor Fred Eaton eyed the Owens River as viable source. The Owens River was the water source for the Owens Valley, an agricultural area in the eastern part of the state.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) Superintendent William Mulholland oversaw construction of the 223-mile-long Los Angeles Aqueduct, which was designed to divert water from the river. The city acquired the necessary water rights by underhanded means. In Cadillac Desert by Mark Reiser, the author describes the city’s water rights acquisitions as “chicanery, subterfuge ... and a strategy of lies.” The resulting hostilities became a decades-long conflict referred to as the California Water Wars. The movie Chinatown, while fictional, was inspired by the California Water Wars and provides insight about LADWP’s underhanded tactics and the impact of the Los Angeles Aqueduct on the farmers in the Owen’s Valley.

The Los Angeles Aqueduct was completed in 1913, and not long after, farmers in the Owens Valley struggled to farm because of low water supplies. By 1926, Owens Lake, which was fed by the Owens River, had dried up. In 1970, Los Angeles completed a second aqueduct to divert more surface water, along with groundwater that was pumped in the Owens Valley. Within two years, groundwater-fed seeps and springs in the valley had dried up.

The efforts to meet the water needs of a thirsty and growing Los Angeles devastated another community.

Consider the case of the Colorado River Delta

The Colorado River, which is over-appropriated, is an important water resource for the southwest United States and the Mexicali Valley in Mexico. According to the United States Bureau of Reclamation, the about 70% of the water supplied by the river is used for agricultural purposes, and it provides municipal water for over 35 million people.

At one time, the Colorado River flowed the entirety of its approximately 1,400-mile course from its headwaters in Colorado mountains to the Sea of Cortez. The Colorado River Delta once spanned millions of acres. (Everyone seems to have a different figure for the size, likely caused by disagreement over which lands were once part of the delta. The lowest figure comes in at 1.9 million acres). It supported a diverse population of plants and animals and carried nutrients to the land and to an important fishery in the Sea of Cortez and prevented the Sea of Cortez from intruding into the Mexicali and Imperial Valleys.

Today, the river’s flow is controlled by a network of dams, which hold water to be used by the irrigators and cities that depend on it. Construction of the dams, especially Hoover Dam (Lake Mead) and Glen Canyon Dam (Lake Powell), halted the river from making the full journey to the Sea of Cortez, except after extreme flooding, which hasn’t happened since the 1990s. The Colorado River usually trickles down to nothing in the 70-miles from Morelos Dam to the Sea of Cortez. The Colorado River Delta is a scant piece of what it once was, possibly as low as 1% of historical area. The tiny portion that is still delta serves important environmental functions as a wetland and a vital stopover for migrating birds on the Pacific Flyway, but most of the area is sand and mudflats and not useful for human or environmental uses.

What To Do?

These two examples are not isolated incidents. All over the world there are rivers where people are impacted because of flows have been reduced by the construction of dams, barrages or weirs, and other diversion works. A few notable examples include the Nile River Delta in Egypt and the Indus River Delta in Pakistan and Indian. The Nile gets attention because the Aswan Dam has reduced flows so the river is not fanning out and providing soil nutrients the way it once did. The fertile crescent is no longer so fertile. The Indus River gets attention because of conflict between Pakistan and India over use of the river and because of the exodus of people from the delta region because of water quality degradation and encroachment by the Arabian Sea.

The two U.S. examples stand out because of efforts to mitigate or even reverse the damage that was caused. In the case of the Owens River, in 2008, under a settlement of a lawsuit, and after missing deadlines, Los Angeles rewatered the lower Owens River, but a new conflict erupted in 2022 over whether the city has a responsibility to implement dust control measures at Owens Lake. In 2023, Owens Lake flooded for the first time in over a century due to back-to-back storms early in the year. Los Angeles still gets about 38% of its water supply from the Owens Valley.

On the Colorado River, in March 2014, the U.S. sent a pulse-flow of water from Lake Mead to Morelos Dam and subsequently released from Morelos Dam to see if the water would flow to the Sea of Cortez. It made the trip in 5 days. A subsequent treaty minute between the United States and Mexico called for a continuous flow of water to the Colorado River Delta.

But what if we could manage water supplies in way that does not require going back later to mitigate the damage we caused?