With virtually no public notice, state officials quietly gave away a significant portion of Southern California’s water supply to farmers in the Central Valley as part of a deal with the Trump administration in December 2018.

One year later, it remains unclear why the California Department of Water Resources signed the agreement, which strips the agency, during exceptionally dry years, of 254,000 acre-feet of water — about what Los Angeles consumes in six months. This change will place extra strain on urban water users during drought years. The agreement could also have potentially disastrous implications for the Sacramento River’s salmon runs, since it will negatively impact river flows and water temperatures.