When parts of Los Angeles were on fire in early 2025, Donald Trump, as is his style, did not hesitate to get involved. As the disaster was in progress, he castigated both California and Los Angeles officials for their disaster management and disaster preparations. He even went so far as to accuse them of holding water back in Northern California rather than sending it to Southern California because the official, allegedly, were more interested in the fate of the Delta smelt (a tiny fish) than the lives of Los Angelenos.
In fact, he insisted on “solving” the problem by ordering the Army Corps of Engineers to release water from Northern California even though this water would never reach Southern California.
On January 31, 2025, he posted,
Politico and The Washington Post described the result – The Army Corps of Engineers officials of downstream communities that one hour notice they were about to open up two reservoirs to maximum capacity in response to Trump’s directives. Those officials had to scramble to warn downstream farms and get equipment out of the way of the anticipated floods while they tried to get the Corps to release the water more slowly.
Fortunately they were able to do so and while no damage was done, the billions of gallons were wasted in the Central Valley and will no longer be available for farm irrigation later in the growing season. Again, there is no connection between the northern reservoirs and the fire-fighting water supplies in Southern California.
The Washington Post followed up about a month later with a report that indicated that Colonel Chad Caldwell, commander of the Army Corps’ Sacramento district had explained that the water released would not reach Southern California but he was, nonetheless, ordered to proceed by Trump’s executive order. He was also asked to send photos of the flowing water to Washington DC, one of which may have been the one that appeared in Trump’s social media message noted above. The article goes on to detail the haphazard way in which the release was carried out and how the Army Corps eventually stopped the release after wasting 2.5 billion gallons of water rather than the full 5.2 billion gallons that Trump had ordered.