There is no water shortage in California, but firefighters battling raging blazes across Los Angeles are finding they lack the resources to put out blazes that are threatening thousands of lives, homes, land and wildlife. facing.
Critics, meanwhile, are taking issue with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s call for “no politics,” attributing it to pure political mismanagement.
“This is all political,” Edward Ring, director of water and energy policy at the California Policy Center think tank, said in an interview on Fox News Digital. “The whole cause is political and they ironically politicize it by saying it’s about climate change, but that’s a political wedge that they use all the time and it’s actually This is one of the smallest contributing factors.”
Experts largely blame the state’s forest management response and a lesser-known problem: the state’s outdated water storage system. California’s existing reservoirs can only hold so much water, many of which were built in the mid-20th century.
The state experienced record rainfall last year after an atmospheric river event, and existing water infrastructure faced difficulty dealing with the sudden influx of water. A significant portion of that rainfall was dumped into the ocean.
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California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass tour the Pacific Palisades downtown business district as the Palisades Fire continues to burn in Los Angeles on January 8, 2025. (Eric Thayer/Getty Images)
Ring also cited the state’s “Environmental Protection Act,” which is pushing for stricter regulations, such as the Endangered Species Act, which requires freshwater to flow through rivers and into the Pacific Ocean to protect endangered delta smelt and salmon. He also pointed out “extremist groups.” This mandate limits the amount of water that can be diverted to storage, even in wet years.
“Water is plentiful,” Ring argues, but the main challenge in transporting water south to San Joaquin Valley farmers and Southern California cities is environmental policy, not infrastructure capacity. He noted that the “bureaucrat-board agreement” that oversees water management in California prioritizes keeping more water in rivers to support endangered fish species.
“That’s true,” he says, but despite these efforts, salmon and smelt populations have not recovered. Additionally, there are growing concerns that sturgeon may soon be classified as an endangered species.
“These endangered fish species are being used as a reason to leave water in the river,” he said.
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Khaled Fuad and Mimi Lane embrace while inspecting their family’s property destroyed by the Eaton Fire on January 9, 2025 in Altadena, California. Fueled by strong Santa Ana winds, the Eaton Fire grew to more than 10,000 acres and destroyed many homes and businesses. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Urban areas like Los Angeles have highly developed drainage systems that channel rainwater directly into the ocean. These were originally designed with flood prevention in mind rather than water storage, which poses an additional challenge for the region.
“They’re drawing water from California Aqueduct, they’re importing water into Los Angeles as well, but they’re not drawing enough water and the reservoirs are running dry,” Ring said. “But the biggest problem is Los Angeles’ water infrastructure, because firefighting efforts can’t even drain half of the reservoirs. Los Angeles’ water infrastructure has been ignored. And the reason it’s being ignored is: ” They want money for other projects. ”
“The bottom line is they’re not spending money on it and they’re justifying it by saying they have to use less water,” he continued. “So they’re encouraging people to use water, sometimes rationing it, forcing them to use less water. As a result, we don’t have a system as robust as this.”
A former California lawmaker recently said that the state’s lack of water infrastructure is “destroying California.”
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A woman evacuates during the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California, on January 8, 2025, after strong winds sparked a devastating wildfire in the Los Angeles area. (David Swanson/Reuters)
California voters passed Proposition 1, also known as the Water Quality, Supply and Infrastructure Improvement Act, in 2014, creating a $2.7 billion bond issue to increase the state’s water storage capacity through the construction of new reservoirs and groundwater storage facilities. Approved. However, as of January 2025, the new reservoir under Proposition 1 has not yet been completed.
“And we’ve had this situation here for years, and we’ve never shoveled a lot of dirt to get the project going,” Dahle said. “This project just didn’t have the money, we had a $100 billion surplus and we didn’t fund it. So what’s frustrating for most Californians is the lack of funding. I think it’s because there was a program and there was no funding.”We’re not going to do anything about it. ”
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The largest of the wildfires, the Eaton Fire near Altadena and Pasadena, had burned more than 27,000 acres, Cal Fire reported as of noon Thursday.
Asked for comment, Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gurdon told Fox News Digital, “The governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have the resources they need.” I’m trying to do it,” he said.
Jamie Joseph is a political writer. She leads Fox News Digital’s Senate coverage.
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