Trump falsely claims military restored water to California

A week after he removed the United States from the Paris climate accord and ordered a series of rollbacks on environmental regulations, Trump claimed on January 27 the US military "just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest."

"The days of putting a Fake Environmental argument, over the PEOPLE, are OVER," the US president wrote in a January 27 post on his platform, Truth Social -- echoing earlier claims he made in the aftermath of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires, falsely stating California could solve its drought crisis, worsened by human-induced climate change, by simply opening a valve.

Posts on X quickly followed, stating that Trump sent the "military to turn the water back on."

"I trust everyone understands the seismic impact of what's occurring here with Trump effectively letting the water that's been long diverted into the ocean, to flow down into California. Imagine the visible impact this will cause as the state greens quickly and the water flows filling her streams, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs thereby exposing the grand deception of drought as being the cause," a January 28 post on X says.

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A screenshot of an X post taken on January 29, 2025

The claim was reiterated in a White House press briefing on January 28 (archived here).

"The water has been turned back on in California," said Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, mentioning the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) -- the agency in charge of flood control and flood risk management throughout California -- when asked to clarify the nature of the military operations Trump was referencing.

But on January 29, a spokesperson for the USACE said it "did not restore any water source this past week."

Rather, "at the direction of the President, we are currently exploring all options within existing authorities to increase water supply to help fight and prevent wildfires in California," the spokesperson said.

The California Department of Water Resources also said in a January 28 statement that "the military did not enter California" (archived here).

It said: "The federal government restarted federal water pumps after they were offline for maintenance for three days. State water supplies in Southern California remain plentiful."

No conduit

Scientists and legal experts told AFP Trump's statement is false and emphasizes his misunderstanding of the state's water systems.

Max Gomberg, water policy expert at the non-profit California Water Impact Network, and former conservation manager for the State Water Resources Control Board (archived here), said California relies on two main water delivery projects, one run by the state and the other run by the federal government.

"The one run by the federal government is the Central Valley Project (archived here). That project does not deliver water to Southern California," he said on January 28. "The delivery system for the federal project only goes through the San Joaquin Valley."

The Central Valley Project, which Trump has targeted under executive order (archived here), primarily serves agriculture in Central California -- not the Los Angeles area, where historic wildfires killed more than two dozen people in January, razing around 40,000 acres (16,000 hectares) and leveling thousands of buildings.

As for the state project, "the President doesn't have control over" that part of the network, he added.

Peter Gleick, water systems expert and a senior fellow at the Pacific Institute (archived here), a nonprofit research center, labeled the claim as the president's latest "fact-free, confusing, and fantastical comments" about California's water systems.

"Zero water from the Pacific Northwest comes to California -- there are no pipelines, aqueducts or water transfers. That claim is just another example of Trump's complete ignorance about how western water systems work," Gleick told AFP on January 28.

Deborah Sivas, director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Stanford University, agreed (archived here) saying: "The only major river that flows from the northwest into California is the Klamath, but that river flows to the ocean in Northern California and does not supply any water to the State Water Project or the federal Central Valley Water Project."

Trump's claim was "pure disinformation," she said on January 28.

Experts previously told AFP limitations in accessing water in Los Angeles during the wildfires were prompted by infrastructure challenges -- not supplies themselves.

State water resource data shows that most of California's major water reservoirs are currently at robust levels for this time of the year, and were when the fires started (archived here).

Furthermore, no conduit could bring "abundant" water as claimed by the US president, explained Nell Green Nylen, a senior research fellow at the Wheeler Water Institute at UC Berkeley Law (archived here and here).

People are "trying to come up with a logical explanation for what else he could have meant," but "there's simply no there, there," she said on January 28. "No part of it reflects reality."

Extreme swings in weather conditions amplified by anthropogenic climate change have worsened pre-existing issues faced in the state, including urban water scarcity, drought episodes and wildfires.

Scientists have pointed to a fatal combination of weather trends behind the historic January wildfires, conditions likely worsened by climate change. 

Two years of heavy rains caused rapid growth of vegetation. Followed by near-record drought, the vegetation was turned into fuel for fires. The intense Santa Ana winds that tore through the area made fire containment nearly impossible.

AFP previously debunked false claims about the state's environmental policies, following the devastating fires.