Fearing Trump, California is preparing to go its own way on water

SACRAMENTO, California — Gov. Gavin Newsom is making moves to keep control of California's water — and protect the state’s endangered species from a potential second Trump administration.

With federal and state officials in the midst of renegotiating how they manage a 400-mile system of reservoirs, pumps and canals that moves water out of the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta to deliver it to taps and farms across the state, California water officials are taking steps to adopt guidelines from the state’s own wildlife officials rather than federal ones.

Lenny Grimaldo, the Department of Water Resources’ State Water Project environmental director, said in an email the decision to seek a separate state permit to operate the system, rather than a joint state-federal one, was “to ensure [California Endangered Species Act] coverage remains in place even if there is a future change in federal law.”

The proposed split is a repeat of the state’s approach in 2019 when then-President Donald Trump approved endangered species rules for the federal side of the pumps that were slightly weaker in order to send more water to farmers and cities further south.

California’s water officials, breaking with precedent, chose to pursue their own guidelines , which provided additional requirements for fish like the longfin smelt and included more limits on pumping.

But the differences caused “chaos,” said Jason Phillips, CEO of the Friant Water Authority, which delivers water from the federal government to parts of the eastern Central Valley.

“It was unnecessary confusion, caused a lot of extra work and it did cost the projects more water,” he said.

Things got tense, with both Newsom suing the Trump administration over its changes and water agencies suing Newsom over the state guidelines. But they quieted down once a court ordered state and federal officials to adopt joint interim yearly plans instead of separate guidelines starting in 2020.

Now, with the Newsom and Biden administrations racing to rewrite the original Trump-era rules before the end of the year, the prospect of another split is raising the temperature again.

“It’s a big deal,” said Phillips, who sent a letter to state and federal officials this week along with other water agencies raising alarms about possible differences between the state and federal plans and asking them to waive a fall restriction on pumping.

“We’re trying to have a dialogue about this,” added Jennifer Pierre, the general manager of the State Water Contractors, the group of 27 agencies that get water from the state. “The more coordinated we are, the better we do.”

Biden and Newsom officials have said they are mostly on the same page for now. But Trump has repeated his campaign promise to send more water to farmers.

Environmentalists remain skeptical either way. Jon Rosenfield, the senior scientist at the San Francisco Baykeeper, and others have said Newsom’s alternative guidelines for the State Water Project don’t stop fish from dying, even calling them “Trump-lite.”

“We’re distinguishing between two different speeds to extinction, not a choice between extinction and not extinction,” said Rosenfield.

Instead, he sees the Newsom administration’s split from the federal government as a strategy to cement its own vision for the Delta region, which he opposes. That vision includes replacing fish-protecting limits on flows with a string of voluntary agreements with water agencies to lower their water use and fund habitat conservation.

Rosenfield didn’t rule out another lawsuit. Neither did Phillips.

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