President-elect Donald Trump took to social media on Wednesday to blame California Gov. Gavin Newsom for what he called “apocalyptic” wildfires raging in the Los Angeles area.
Trump claimed the governor, who he referred to as “Newscum,” refused to sign a “water restoration declaration,” setting southern California up for issues with fighting the wildfires.
“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.
Trump also alleged that Newsom instead wanted to “protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt” rather than the people of California.
Google Trends data show people online were searching for information about the “water restoration declaration” Trump cited in his post.
THE QUESTION
Did California Gov. Gavin Newsom refuse to sign a water restoration declaration, as Trump claimed?
THE SOURCES
- California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office
- Jeffrey Mount, Ph.D., senior fellow at the PPIC Water Policy Center
- Spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition team
- Courthouse News Service
- Brent Haddad, Ph.D., a professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz
- California Department of Water Resources
- Article written by Peter Gleick, a climate and water scientist, for the nonprofit Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
THE ANSWER
Newsom did not refuse to sign a water restoration declaration because no such document exists.
WHAT WE FOUND
California Gov. Gavin Newsom did not refuse to sign a water restoration declaration because no such document exists.
“There is no such document as the water restoration declaration – that is pure fiction,” Newsom’s office said in a statement posted on X.
“As far as I know, there is no such document,” Jeffrey Mount, Ph.D., senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California’s Water Policy Institute, said.
VERIFY asked Trump’s team to clarify what the president-elect was referring to with his claim about a “water restoration declaration.” A spokesperson said in response, “President Trump signed an order to redirect water to the Central Valley and Southern California, but Gavin Newsom sued him — choosing his radical left environmental interests over Golden State farmers and families.”
In February 2020, during his first presidential term, Trump signed a memorandum aimed at directing more water from northern California to central and southern California. That memorandum was tied to the Central Valley Project, a federally-owned and operated water supply project that covers approximately 400 miles in California.
California responded to the memorandum by suing the Trump administration, arguing it would harm endangered species – including the Delta smelt, a small fish that calls the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in northern California home. It’s nearly disappeared from the Delta in recent years.
The outcome of that lawsuit is unclear. However, President Joe Biden’s administration and state officials announced new rules for operating the federal Central Valley Project and California’s State Water Project in December 2024.
But Trump’s plan would not have made a meaningful impact on the water supply in the Los Angeles area, where the wildfires are still burning.
“The water that supplies Los Angeles is either locally or state controlled, so pronouncements about federal water wouldn’t help fight fires in Los Angeles,” Brent Haddad, Ph.D., a professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told VERIFY.
“Most of the water for Los Angeles doesn’t come from the Central Valley water systems Trump is referring to, but from local sources, the Colorado River, and the Owens Valley aqueduct,” Peter Gleick, a climate and water scientist, wrote in a Jan. 9 article for the nonprofit Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Though firefighters have battled water supply issues in the Los Angeles area, that’s not because of a water shortage in southern California, as Trump suggested.
As VERIFY previously reported, fire hydrants in the Los Angeles area ran out of water because of high water demand that outpaced the speed at which water service officials could replenish the tanks – not a lack of water in southern California.
Most of the state’s major water reservoirs, including those in southern California, have more water than average for this time of year, data from the California Department of Water Resources show.
“At no time during this fire has there been a shortage of water in southern California. Their reservoirs are full,” Mount said.
One reservoir in the Pacific Palisades area was offline as it was closed for maintenance when the fires broke out, the Los Angeles Times and New York Times reported.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday ordered an independent investigation of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power over the loss of water pressure and empty reservoir, calling it “deeply troubling,” the LA Times reported.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.