By Dan Bacher

Karla Nemeth, Governor Gavin Newsom’s top water official, told an audience of growers and water managers at the Kern County Water Summit on March 6 that the state is willing to work with the Trump Administration to weaken environmental rules that restrict the pumping of water, according to a story that just broke from Politico.

Regional farmers, conservationists and tribes fear that will amount to allowing the feds to over-pump the imperiled Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

“[Nemeth] said that she expected updating one particular rule governing pumping water in the state’s main water hub, called the Old and Middle River flow limit, to be part of ongoing regulations with federal counterparts this spring and throughout the year,” Politico reported.

“My spidey sense is that’s probably going to be part of what plan comes out of the federal administration’s plan to implement the executive order,” said Nemeth, the Director of the California Department of Water Resources. “The state is open to that. We’re looking for a federal partner to help us work through that information together.”

Delta advocates condemned this plan, saying it will destroy the Delta and its once abundant fish populations and ecosystem.

“Of course, the Special Advisor to Governor Newsom on California water, Karla Nemeth, is promoting a plan with the Trump Administration to over pump the Delta and then finish it off with a tunnel,” responded Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta, in a statement. “This has been the direction of her entire career, and fulfills campaign promises for Governor Newsom to his political donors in Kern County, Stewart and Lynda Resnick. Governor Newsom, like President Trump, is facilitating the biggest transfer of public health and environmental health by pitting one area of California against the other through water transfers. He is a divider, not a uniter.”

She added, “At a time when California’s water future should be guided by science and sustainability, Governor Newsom is instead prioritizing corporate interests over Delta communities, fisheries and the environment, partnering with Trump on water policy will only deepen existing inequities, accelerate ecological collapse, and put frontline communities and California tribes at greater risk.”

From the perspective of fish and wildlife advocates, news of the Newsom Administration’s stated willingness to collaborate with the Trump White House on weakening environmental protections for the Delta couldn’t come at a worse time. Zero Delta smelt, an indicator species that has been villainized by Donald Trump and his corporate agribusiness allies, have been caught in the CDFW Fall Midwater Trawl Survey in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta for the seventh year in a row.

Meanwhile, salmon fishing on California’s ocean and river waters has been closed for the past two years and is likely to be closed again this year, due to the collapse of Sacramento River and Klamath River fall-run Chinook salmon populations. Likewise, Sacramento River winter-run and spring-run Chinook salmon are moving closer and closer to extinction, due to massive water exports from the Delta and other factors, including invasive species, toxics and water pollution.

The Governor is now moving full speed ahead with his plans to build the Sites Reservoir and Delta Tunnel. Experts have testified that these projects, by diverting more water from the Sacramento River before it flows through the Delta, will only further exacerbate the critical situation that Delta fish species and Central Valley salmon populations are now in.

Why are Nemeth, Newsom and other state officials so willing to work with the Trump Administration on gutting environmental regulations? It has not gone unnoticed that Stewart and Lynda Resnick, the billionaire owners of the Wonderful Company, have donated many millions of dollars to both the Democratic and Republican parties over the years. They are mega-donors to Newsom and were instrumental in the creation of the Monterey Amendment, a 994 pact between Department of Water Resources and State Water Project contractors which allowed the Resnicks to obtain their 57% stake in the Kern Water Bank. That water bank is located in the very county were Nemeth just announced Newsom’s interest in working with the Trump Administration on water.