California does not have a water shortage, yet firefighters battling the brutal fires across Los Angeles are facing scarce resources to keep up with the blaze that has threatened thousands of lives, homes, land and wildlife.
Meanwhile, critics challenge Gov. Gavin Newsom’s call to “not play politics,” arguing that political mismanagement is precisely to blame.
“It’s all political,” Edward Ring, the director of water and energy policy for the California Policy Center think-tank, told Fox News Digital in an interview. “The entire cause is political, and they ironically politicize it by saying it’s about climate change, which is a political wedge that they use all the time, which is really one of the least of the factors causing this.”
Experts lay blame primarily on the state’s handling of its forestry management and a lesser-known problem, the state’s outdated water reserves system. California’s existing reservoirs can only hold so much water, and many were built in the mid-20th century.
Last year, the state experienced record-breaking rainfall after an atmospheric river event, but the existing water infrastructure faced difficulties managing the sudden influx of water. A significant portion of that rainfall was dumped into the ocean.
PALISADES FIRE: HEIDI MONTAG, SPENCER PRATT LOSE HOME; CELEBRITIES FLEE RITZY NEIGHBORHOOD
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass tour the downtown business district of Pacific Palisades as the Palisades Fire continues to burn on Jan. 8, 2025 in Los Angeles. (Eric Thayer/Getty Images)
Ring also pointed to “environmentalist extremists” in the state who have pushed for heavier regulations like the Endangered Species Act, which requires freshwater to flow through rivers and into the Pacific Ocean to protect the endangered delta smelt and salmon. The mandates restrict how much water can be diverted to storage, even during wet years.
“There is plenty of water,” Ring argues, but the primary challenge in…
