President Donald Trump announced on Monday night he sent the military to California and used his emergency powers to increase water flow from the Pacific Northwest.
The president made his announcement from his Truth Social account.
“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. The days of putting a Fake Environmental argument, over the PEOPLE, are OVER. Enjoy the water, California!!!” he said.
However, shortly after the president’s announcement, the California Department of Water Resources said the military did not enter California, adding the water supplies “remain plentiful.”
“The military did not enter California,” the department shared on X.
“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 announcement came after the president said he would assert more federal government control over water management in California in the wake of the devastating wildfires that burned over 15,000 structures in the Pacific Palisades, Altadena, and Pasadena – one of the most destructive fires in California history, rivaled only by the Camp Fire in 2019. Per Bloomberg:
The actions — enshrined in an executive order that was published Sunday but dated Friday — came as Trump visited California to examine devastation from the wildfires ravaging Los Angeles and after days of withering criticism of the state’s response to the blazes.
The order builds on Trump’s day-one declaration that the US is in the grip of an energy emergency by directing federal officials to expedite exemptions waiving protections under the Endangered Species Act for a complex of dams, reservoirs and other facilities that irrigate farmland across California’s Central Valley and supply water to millions of people.
Trump is also directing meetings of a committee of cabinet-level officials that can green light ventures even when the survival of a species is at stake. The panel, known informally as the “God Squad,” has met only a handful of times over the past four decades.
California’s water crisis has been largely spurred by environmental concerns, with advocates saying that withdrawals could potentially endanger habitats of various species, such as the delta smelt, Chinook salmon and steelhead trout. Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for California Governor Gavin Newsom, said the notable lack of water during the wildfires had nothing to do with environmental protections.
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“California continues to pump as much water as it did under the Trump administration’s policies, and water operations to move water south through the Delta have absolutely nothing to do with the local fire response in Los Angeles,” Gallegos told Bloomberg.
“It’s just idiotic to keep scapegoating endangered salmon and smelt and fixate on gutting the Endangered Species Act when it had nothing to do with the LA wildfires,” said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity.
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