As California was literally on fire, our next president was erroneously blaming us for our disaster. We had wrongly denied Southern California water. “Beautiful, clean, fresh” water. Without water, the Southland was left to burn.

“Governor Gavin Newscum,” as Donald Trump calls him, “is the blame for this.”

First, the facts: Southern California is not short of water. There is water for fire hydrants. There is water for firefighting planes. This disaster is being fueled by a ferocious Santa Ana Wind, not water mismanagement.

Whether Trump knows this or not is less important than that most Californians know little or nothing about water usage and storage in our state.

In a telling 2012 survey, 78% of all Californians said they did not know about the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Our Delta happens to be an estuary of hemispheric importance for birds, the gateway for salmon coming to and from the Pacific, and the home of the nation’s two largest water projects that serve two out of three Californians in the greater Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

Given the widespread lack of understanding about California water, the issue is ripe for disinformation. Perhaps to some, Trump may have sounded as if he was providing factual information about water and Newsom on social media when he was not:

“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. He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!”

In managing water projects under the state and federal Endangered Species Acts, the truth is that pumping restrictions that were relaxed under Trump’s first presidency were recently stiffened by the outgoing Biden administration.

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (where I worked for 16 years) imports water from the Delta and the Colorado River for Southern California use. Southern California has more water being held in reserve than at any time in nearly a century.

It is heartbreaking in this moment of despair to revisit the background music that is California water politics.

Trump knows enough about California’s vulnerabilities to lie about it. And that puts him one step ahead of us.

Disasters are among our darkest civic moments. They can bring out the best in leaders. Yet California disasters bring out the absolute worst in Trump. And he isn’t even president again yet.

Putting aside the fact that Democratic and Republican presidents before Trump issued words of healing and compassion during disasters, and refrained from scoring political points as Americans lost their homes, Trump’s words transmit an ignorance about California water issues shared by too many Californians.

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