In early 2025, California faced a series of devastating wildfires that ravaged vast areas of the state—particularly its southern regions. Two weeks after the fires broke out in Los Angeles, President Donald Trump issued an executive order mandating the release of 2.2 billion gallons of water from reservoirs in the Central Valley. This directive was presented as a measure to combat the wildfires. However, a closer examination reveals that the action was motivated more by politics than by emergency, ultimately undermining California’s water management authority, favoring agribusiness interests, and jeopardizing the state’s environmental and water resources.
California’s water system is a complex network of reservoirs, dams, and aqueducts distributing water to satisfy agricultural, urban, and environmental needs. The water system operates under dual administration, where state agencies such as the California Department of Water Resources
and federal entities like the Bureau of Reclamation manage different components requiring careful coordination to balance competing demands and ensure equitable distribution. This delicate balance has been maintained for decades, with agreements in place to manage the shared resources effectively. However, climate change has made this balance increasingly fragile by intensifying droughts and diminishing water supplies. As precipitation patterns shift and temperatures rise, managing limited water supplies responsibly has become essential for the state to meet its future residential and agricultural water needs. That is, federal destabilization of this system could have lasting consequences for California’s ecological and human systems.
In response to the fires, Trump accused California officials of mismanaging water resources, stating that “millions and millions and millions of gallons [are] being poured out into the Pacific Ocean that you could have,” suggesting that a lack of water hindered firefighting efforts despite expert consensus that water supply was not the issue. While some Los Angeles fire hydrants ran out of water, city fire and utility officials say it was caused by a “sudden surge in demand and limited capacity of city pipelines” and not a lack of water supply. Trump’s executive order directed federal agencies to override state water policies and release water from federally managed reservoirs, specifically Lake Kaweah and Success Lake in the Central Valley. The stated intent of Trump’s order was to augment water supplies for firefighting, despite the major Southern California wildfires already being largely contained by the time of the releases.
Even if the wildfires were still occurring, the released water had no direct path to the wildfire-affected areas—particularly Los Angeles, which is located over 100 miles away from the reservoirs. Los Angeles’ water supply is entirely independent of the system that provides water from Lake Kaweah and Lake Success. Instead, the released water flowed into the Tulare Lake Basin, which has no natural outlets into other bodies of water. Because all of the released water must remain in the basin, releasing water during the winter months (when agricultural demand is low) means that much of the water will evaporate or become unusable by the time it is needed for irrigation in the spring and summer. This creates significant uncertainty for farmers who rely on a predictable water supply for their crops, making it difficult to plan for the growing season. Without guaranteed access to stored water later in the year, farmers may be forced to cut back on planting, reduce their yields, or invest in costly alternative water sources, all of which threaten their financial stability.
The Trump Administration’s decision to release water without proper coordination also failed to account for the immediate risk of flooding, putting local communities and infrastructure in danger. As the water was released, local authorities tasked with managing the releases—the General Manager of the Lower Tule River and Pixley irrigation districts Eric Limas and General Manager of the Tulare Irrigation District Aaron Fukuda—were caught off guard by the lack of communication from federal authorities. “Normally, these kinds of flood releases are done with a lot of notification and coordination,” Fukuda remarked. However, this time, they received only an hour’s notice from the Army Corps of Engineers before the Tule and Kaweah rivers reached “channel capacity,” the maximum volume of water a river channel can hold before overflowing and causing flooding. Due to the uncertainty and immediate risk of flooding, Limas, Fukuda, and Kaweah River Water Master Victor Hernandez mobilized their teams. Preparing for the worst, they worked through the night to manage the water flow and prevent further damage to infrastructure. Trump’s rushed decision to release water without consulting with local water managers or coordinating effectively was a deliberate move to assert federal dominance over state and local authorities, undermining their expertise and authority while forcing a response that prioritized political power and control over the careful management of flood risks, agricultural needs, and long-term water security.
Water in California is already over-allocated, meaning that most of the state’s water supply has been granted to farmers, cities, and industries residing outside the state’s natural reach. In fact, California has issued five times more water rights than the state’s rivers and groundwater can supply, a situation that has led to chronic water shortages and intensified competition between different users. Approximately 80 percent of the water currently allocated goes to large-scale farming, where agribusinesses have long held substantial water rights. This over-allocation creates a significant imbalance, leaving little room for environmental conservation or urban needs during droughts.
Agribusiness in California, particularly in the Central Valley, has long been a powerful political force, advocating for policies that increase water access—policies that often conflict with the state water authority’s conservation efforts. Large agricultural trade associations like Westlands Water District, which represent major growers of almonds, pistachios, and cotton, have consistently lobbied for weaker state conservation restrictions and more favorable federal water policies. The Westlands Water District, as the largest agricultural water district in the nation, has pushed to override state-imposed water limits, citing the need for “more reliable” water access to support its extensive farming operations.
Consequently, Trump’s executive order, which sought to override state-imposed water limits, marked a major victory for the industry. Trump remarked, “A major obstacle to providing more water for the region’s farmers has now been totally eliminated by the federal government.” The order aimed to “override existing activities that unduly burden efforts to maximize water deliveries,” thus increasing the water allocations for Central Valley farmers. This is particularly significant because this year, Westlands received a 50 percent water allocation, meaning it was granted half of the total contracted amount of water it had requested from federal supplies—substantially higher than its 10-year average of about 30 percent. Supporters of the order, including Westlands’ General Manager Allison Fembo, praised the move, suggesting that it provided a much-needed boost for an area struggling with unreliable water supplies. This is part of a broader trend of past administrations influencing California’s water policy. Such actions include the 2003 Quantification Settlement Agreement and the Trump Administration’s 2019 biological opinion revisions which increased water deliveries to Central Valley agriculture. This strong federal support for policies designed to facilitate water transfers and expand storage capacity primarily benefits large agribusinesses while worsening environmental degradation. Increased water deliveries to agriculture can strain already overburdened water systems, deplete groundwater resources, and reduce flows needed to sustain ecosystems and endangered species.
In order to resist the growing influence of agribusiness and address the state’s ongoing water crisis, California’s water authorities have implemented strict conservation measures and limitations on water allocations to ensure long-term sustainability and protect the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Such measures include the State Water Resources Control Board’s past emergency drought regulations, which included limits on water deliveries for agricultural use during drought conditions. These regulations prioritized water for urban and environmental uses, reducing the amount of water allocated to agricultural districts like Westlands. These regulations also sought to rein in the use of water by agribusiness. They did this by requiring the adoption of more efficient irrigation practices, mandating the implementation of water-saving technologies, and increasing focus on improving water storage systems to preserve resources during dry periods. While similar measures can serve as a form of control and resistance against the Trump Administration’s push for more federal influence over water management, they face significant challenges. A key example of this is the lawsuit filed by farm irrigation districts around the Delta after the 2014–2015 California drought. These districts challenged the State Water Control Board’s regulations. In a setback for state regulators, they lost the case. While the ruling didn’t eliminate the board’s emergency authority, it poses a threat to its ability to regulate water withdrawals in the future, potentially complicating efforts to implement sustainable water management and curb the influence of agribusiness.
The state’s water authority has also worked to limit agribusiness development by enforcing environmental protections for endangered species in the Delta. One example is the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) compliance measures, under which the California Department of Water Resources and the US Fish and Wildlife Service restrict water pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to agricultural districts during certain times of the year. These restrictions aim to protect fish species like the Chinook salmon and the delta smelt, which are crucial to the Delta’s ecosystem and have suffered significant population declines due to altered water flow, pollution, and habitat destruction. The same federal government that enforces the ESA to protect these species is also attempting to override those protections, prioritizing economic development and agriculture over the ecological health of the Delta.
The Trump Administration’s interference in California’s water management highlights a critical issue at the intersection of federalism and state environmental policy—who truly holds the power to regulate natural resources, and whose interests are being served in the process? By intervening in state-controlled water management under the guise of emergency response, the administration has set a dangerous precedent for overriding environmental regulations to benefit specific industries, such as agribusiness, and allowed these industries to exert undue influence over policy decisions that prioritize their financial interests over the public good.
Trump’s executive order was not just a misguided response to wildfires—it was a strategic move that reinforced federal dominance over state water management while benefiting agribusiness at the expense of environmental sustainability. As climate change intensifies water scarcity, conflicts over regulation will become more frequent, making it crucial to reaffirm the role of state and local agencies in managing resources. If left unchecked, federal overreach in water policy could further erode environmental protections, setting a precedent where those with the most political influence, not those with the most at stake, determine the future of water access and sustainability.