I suspected things might get bad for San Francisco Bay with an emboldened Trump administration returning to Washington, D.C. During President Trump’s first term, they weakened Clean Water Act protections, facilitated dirty fossil fuel production, and claimed California was wasting water by letting it flow out to the ocean.

But I couldn’t believe it when I heard the new president had focused one of his first official actions on diverting the Bay’s freshwater flows. While the L.A. fires were a devastating tragedy that our fellow Californians will be trying to recover from for years to come, the new administration seems to have used them as cover to move forward a political agenda.

As news outlets reported, the misinformation flew. The president suggested L.A. didn’t have enough water to fight the fires (it did). He demanded a valve should be turned on to send more water from north to south (no such valve exists). And he claimed California “created an inferno” with its water mismanagement (climate change led to conditions that fanned the flames). Water experts around the state, including those on our staff, were face-palm stunned.

After the L.A. fires were fully contained, the president did something shockingly ill-advised: He ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to release 2 billion gallons of water from two federally managed reservoirs in the Central Valley. This action sparked flood fears in downstream communities. Ironically, the move actually wasted water that was being stored for California’s farmers to use later in the dry season. And for those of us who understand California water, it came as no surprise that the released flows didn’t (and couldn’t) reach L.A.

While we were keeping an eye on D.C. and trying not to be too distracted by the chaos, last week, Sacramento upped the ante. Governor Newsom issued a copycat directive to his state agencies, giving them an order to take as much fresh water out of the Bay’s ecosystem as feasible, suggesting that he too would suspend environmental laws.

Governor Newsom should know better. He should know that the Bay’s fish, including salmon, sturgeon, and smelt, need a consistent flow of fresh water to survive. And he should know that hundreds of thousands of Californians depend on these flows for healthy fisheries and clean drinking water. He should also understand that limiting freshwater flows will lead to more pollution, toxic algae that poisons the Delta, and increased salinity that will accelerate the collapse of the Bay’s ecosystem, which is already in crisis. 

How should he know all this? Because we’ve told him. And his own state agency scientists have told him. Many times.

It’s especially disappointing because the governor has emphasized in the media that he’s going to stand up to the Trump administration and stop it from harming California’s environment. But when it comes to the Bay, his moves have been equally harmful.

It doesn’t make sense, unless a handful of wealthy megafarmers have more clout in D.C. and Sacramento than all the smelt, sturgeon, salmon, commercial fishers, Tribes, and frontline communities combined. So, with a battle brewing between President Trump and Governor Newsom over who can grab the most water from the Bay’s watershed, it turns out Baykeeper’s mission is more important than ever. Because we believe that freshwater is the Bay’s most critical resource and that government agencies need to be held accountable for protecting that limited resource.

That’s why Baykeeper has taken multiple legal actions to challenge the long-term operations of the State Water Project for improperly limiting the Bay’s freshwater flows. We also just won a lawsuit to list Longfin Smelt under the federal Endangered Species Act. Last week we filed a new lawsuit to compel the federal government to provide similar protections to the Bay’s White Sturgeon. Protecting both of these fish will require preserving adequate flows in the rivers. And we’ve partnered with community groups, Tribes, and commercial fishers to challenge boondoggle infrastructure proposals like the Sites Reservoir and Delta Tunnel project (click here to take action), which will divert even more water out of the Bay’s watershed.

Now, in the face of these new threats from D.C. and Sacramento, we’re gearing up to mount an even bigger defense for the Bay. We’ll keep standing up for the environment, people, businesses, fish, and wildlife of the Bay Area—with our allies in the trenches and with you by our side.

Photo: Gail Odom