Trump Issues Executive Order to Divert More Delta Water to Big Agribusiness, Southern California
This memo amounts to an outright attack on recreational and commercial fishing communities, California Tribes, conservationists, Delta communities, family farmers and businesses fighting for the restoration of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
Yesterday President Donald Trump issued an executive order entitled, “Putting People over Fish: Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California,” repeating many of the falsehoods about California water and the Delta smelt that he stated in a post on Truth Social earlier this month.
”I hereby direct the Secretary of Commerce and Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the heads of other departments and agencies of the United States as necessary, to immediately restart the work from my first Administration by the National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Reclamation, and other agencies to route more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the state for use by the people there who desperately need a reliable water supply,” the order states.
This memo amounts to an outright attack on recreational and commercial fishing communities, California Tribes, conservationists, Delta communities, family farmers and businesses fighting for the restoration of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
It repeats the canard of "putting people over fish" that corporate agribusiness has been pushing for many years, completely denying the fact that the California recreational and commercial fishing industry and Delta businesses desperately need the water for their livelihoods that depend on healthy fisheries. The order also denies the crucial role that the Sacramento River, its tributaries and the Delta play in the culture and livelihood of California Indian Tribes.
Recreational and commercial salmon fishing on California ocean waters and recreational salmon fishing on California rivers has been closed for the past two years, putting thousands out of work, due to the collapse of the Sacramento and Klamath River fall-run Chinook salmon populations. The collapse is largely due to massive water diversions from the Sacramento River and the Delta for corporate agribusiness on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California water agencies.
On the Klamath River, a significant amount of water from the Trinity River, the Klamath’s largest tributary, is diverted over to the Sacramento River through a tunnel in the Trinity Mountains to be used to irrigate crops on drainage impaired land in the San Joaquin Valley. Due to the Klamath salmon fishery collapse, the Yurok and Hoopa Valley Indian Tribes were allowed only a small amount of subsistence and ceremonial fish for their use over the past two years.
We're definitely in for a long, rough ride under the second Trump administration.
You can read my piece here about Trump falsely blaming the LA wildfires on Delta protection and the Delta smelt: https://chico.newsreview.com/tag/la-wildfires-not-connected-to-the-delta/
You can also read my piece here about Delta smelt and the California water wars here: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/20/2297979/-Zero-Delta-Smelt-Found-In-Annual-Survey-As-California-Water-Wars-Heat-Up
Here’s the order:
January 20, 2025
MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF COMMERCE, THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR
SUBJECT: Putting People over Fish: Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California
I hereby direct the Secretary of Commerce and Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the heads of other departments and agencies of the United States as necessary, to immediately restart the work from my first Administration by the National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Reclamation, and other agencies to route more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the state for use by the people there who desperately need a reliable water supply.
During my first term, the State of California, at the direction of its Governor, filed a lawsuit to stop my Administration from implementing improvements to California’s water infrastructure. My Administration’s plan would have allowed enormous amounts of water to flow from the snow melt and rainwater in rivers in Northern California to beneficial use in the Central Valley and Southern California. This catastrophic halt was allegedly in protection of the Delta smelt and other species of fish. Today, this enormous water supply flows wastefully into the Pacific Ocean.
The recent deadly and historically destructive wildfires in Southern California underscore why the State of California needs a reliable water supply and sound vegetation management practices in order to provide water desperately needed there, and why this plan must immediately be reimplemented.
Within 90 days of the date of this memorandum, the Secretary of Commerce and Secretary of the Interior shall report to me regarding the progress made in implementing the policies in this memorandum and provide any recommendations regarding future implementation.
