Back in September, Donald Trump raised eyebrows when he called for opening a “very large faucet” in the Pacific Northwest to alleviate drought and wildfire conditions in California.
“You have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north, with the snow caps in Canada and all pouring down, and they have essentially a very large faucet,” he told reporters at an LA press conference, adding that all of that water goes “aimlessly” into the Pacific Ocean, “and if they turned it back, all of that water would come right down here and right into Los Angeles.”
That’s not so simple, experts responded.
Monday, Trump returned to the idea of helping California fight wildfires in a post on the platform Truth Social, which Trump co-founded.
“The United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond,” he wrote. “The days of putting a Fake Environmental argument, over the PEOPLE, are OVER. Enjoy the water, California!!!”
The California Department of Water Resources responded on X, denying the claim.
“The military did not enter California,” officials wrote. “The federal government restarted federal water pumps after they were offline for maintenance for three days. State water supplies in Southern California remain plentiful.”
The Los Angeles Times filled in more details, writing Monday that Trump had directed federal agencies in an executive order to “maximize” water flow from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
A spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom told the paper “the premise of this executive order is false.”
The spokesperson, Tara Gallegos, emphasized that Southern California does not have a water shortage and that reservoirs are at record-high levels.
“Water operations to move water south through the Delta have nothing to do with the local fire response in Los Angeles,” she told the paper. “Trump is either unaware of how water is stored in California or is deliberately misleading the public.”
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