Government mismanagement to save fish in California is now fueling wildfires that are putting millions at risk, a situation that’s familiar for folks victimized by similar malfeasance in Michigan in 2020.

President-elect Donald Trump placed the blame for at least four wildfires raging across southern California that have claimed the lives of five residents on Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, and his decision against shipping water to southern California from the north out of concerns for Delta smelt.

“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” Trump posted to Truth Social on Wednesday, deliberately misspelling Newsome’s name.

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“He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California. Now the ultimate price is being paid. I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to FLOW INTO CALIFORNIA! He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster!”

Trump signed a memorandum in his first term that redirected millions of gallons of water to farmers in the Central Valley and Southern California from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a move Newsom panned at the time.

Federal and state regulations adopted in December effectively reversed Trump’s memorandum, limiting water pumped from the Delta to protect endangered Delta smelt, ABC News reports.

It’s not the first time Trump has criticized Newsom over the issue. In September, Trump pointed to the problem during a campaign stop at his Los Angeles golf club, where Trump placed the blame for southern California water shortages squarely on the governor.

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“The water is cut off upstate, up in the north, you know that, and the water in order to protect a certain little tiny fish called a smelt. They send millions and millions of gallons of water out to the Pacific Ocean way up north — never even gets close to here,” Trump said.

“You have no water down here. And the reason you have no water, you have the canals — the reason you have no water is because Gavin Newsom didn’t want to do it,” he added.

Newsom has denied the issue is playing into the fires that have consumed more than 2,000 structures on track to becoming the costliest wildfire disaster in American history, with a spokesman labeling Trump’s claims as “pure fiction.”

Instead, Newsom and other Democrats are blaming the destruction on climate change, though Trump’s not buying it, Fox News reports.

“One of the best and most beautiful parts of the United States of America is burning down to the ground,” Trump wrote. “It’s ashes, and Gavin Newscum should resign. This is all his fault!!!”

The situation harkens to similar government malfeasance in Michigan that contributed to the collapse of multiple dams in 2020, drained Wixom Lake for the foreseeable future, and forced the evacuation of 10,000 nearby residents.

At the center of that tragedy was a decision by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration to force the aging dams’ owners to maintain water levels at an unsafe elevation to protect freshwater mussels, The Right Scoop reported at the time.

“The company in charge of the lake wanted to reduce the levels of the lake (in 2020) for fear the dam might break in a substantial storm, and Michigan’s AG took them to court,” according to the news site. “The state had been worried about killing freshwater mussels for the (previous) two years, so that when it went to court … that was their argument, that lowering water levels was killing mussels.”

Just a few weeks later, in May 2020, heavy rains took out the earthen Edenville Dam on the Tittabawassee River that forms Wixom Lake, resulting in a flood that overflowed Sanford Dam downriver and left much of the village of Sanford in ruins.

The dam failure also resulted in a flood of costs for taxpayers, from lawsuits against the state, to repair costs, to millions in damages to roads and bridges and other public infrastructure.

A 502-page report from a state-appointed Independent Forensic Team released in 2022 acknowledged that the dam failure “would almost certainly have been prevented” with different decisions, but did not cast blame on any specific person or agency, WJRT reported at the time.

However, a detailed analysis conducted by Jason Hayes, environmental policy director at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, concluded that the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel forced the dam’s owners to raise water levels that had been lowered to conduct repairs.

“Throughout their period of jurisdiction, EGLE appeared to prioritize environmental concerns over spillway capacity,” Hayes wrote. “State regulators expressed concerns about the water levels in Wixom Lake and the potential impact drawing it down might have on the endangered snuffbox mussel (Epioblasma triquetra) and other freshwater mussel species.”

The disaster caused an estimated $200 million in property damages, according to reports at the time.

“The growing weight of evidence appears to show that both the dams’ owner and the state agency charged with regulating the dam allowed for the conditions that enabled a historic flood to push the Edenville Dam to rupture,” Hayes concluded.