The Trump administration is making good on a promise to send more water to California farmers in the state’s crop-rich Central Valley.

The US Bureau of Reclamation on Thursday announced a new plan for operating the Central Valley Project, a vast system of pumps, dams and canals that direct water southward from the state’s wetter north.

It follows an executive order President Donald Trump signed in January calling for more water to flow to farmers, arguing the state was wasting the precious resource in the name of protecting endangered fish species.

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said the plan will help the federal government “strengthen California’s water resilience.”

It takes effect Friday.

But California officials and environmental groups blasted the move, saying sending significantly more water to farmlands could threaten water delivery to the rest of the state and would harm salmon and other fish.

Most of the state’s water is in the north, but most of its people are in the south.

The federally-managed Central Valley Project works in tandem with the state-managed State Water Project, which sends water to cities that supply 27 million Californians.

The systems transport water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, an estuary that provides critical habitat to fish and wildlife including salmon and the delta smelt.

It is important for the two systems to work together, Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, said in a statement.

She warned the Trump administration’s plan could limit the state’s ability to send water to cities and farmers.

That is because the state could be required to devote more water to species protection if the federal project sends more to farms.

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director at Restore the Delta, said pumping more water out would result in more Delta smelt and juvenile salmon dying from getting stuck in the pumping system, and once the temperature warms, harmful algae blooms will develop that are dangerous to fish, wildlife, pets and people.

That could have economic impacts, she said.

“When you destroy water quality and divorce it from land, you are also destroying property values,” she said. “Nobody wants to live near a fetid, polluted backwater swamp.”

The Bureau of Reclamation denied the changes would harm the environment or endangered species.

The Central Valley Project primarily sends water to farms, with a much smaller amount going to cities and industrial use. Water from the Central Valley Project irrigates roughly one-third of all California agriculture, according to the Bureau of Reclamation.

The Westlands Water District, one of the largest uses of Central Valley Project water, cheered the decision.

It “will help ensure that our growers have the water they need to support local communities and the nation’s food supply, while also protecting California’s wildlife,” Allison Febbo, general manager, said in a statement.

During Trump’s first term, he allowed more water to be directed to the Central Valley, a move Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom fought in court, saying it would push endangered delta smelt, chinook salmon and steelhead trout populations to extinction.

The Biden administration changed course, adopting its own water plan in 2024 that environmental groups said was a modest improvement. Newsom didn’t immediately comment Thursday on the new decision.

The Republican president renewed his criticism of the state’s water policies after the Los Angeles-area fires broke out in January and some fire hydrants ran dry.

The Central Valley Project does not supply water to Los Angeles.

Trump dubbed his January executive order “Putting People over Fish: Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California.”

The ShakeAlert computer system that warns about the imminent arrival of shaking from earthquakes sent out a false alarm Thursday morning for a magnitude 5.9 temblor in Carson City, Nev., that did not actually happen.

The ShakeAlert blared on both the MyShake app and the Wireless Emergency Alert system — similar to an Amber Alert — on phones across the region, including in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Sacramento area, and in eastern California, just after 8 a.m.

It wasn’t immediately clear why the ShakeAlert system was activated, or how many phones got the incorrect alerts. The earthquake report was later deleted from the MyShake app — which carries earthquake early warnings from the U.S. Geological Survey’s ShakeAlert system — and from the USGS earthquake website.

“We did not detect any earthquakes,” said Paul Caruso, a USGS geophysicist, Thursday morning.

The ShakeAlert system has previously proved effective in giving seconds of warning ahead of expected shaking coming from significant earthquakes, including from a magnitude 5.2 earthquake in San Diego County in April; earthquakes in El Sereno and the Malibu area last year; and a temblor east of San José in 2022.

“We’re in the process of figuring out what happened,” said Robert de Groot, an operations team leader for the U.S. Geological Survey’s ShakeAlert system.

There have been other times when earthquake early warnings have misfired.

In 2023, a scheduled drill of the MyShake app at 10:19 a.m. rang instead at 3:19 a.m., which occurred because the warning was inadvertently scheduled for 10:19 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, instead of Pacific time.

And in 2021, phone users across Northern California got a warning of a magnitude 6 earthquake in Truckee, near Lake Tahoe; but the quake that actually occurred was a far more modest magnitude 4.7. Scientists said the significant overestimation of the quake’s magnitude was in part caused by it being on the edge of the ShakeAlert seismic network sensors, and that researchers worked on reprogramming the computer system to avoid a similar issue in the future.

Investigators out of Navajo County, Arizona, served multiple search warrants at a Southern Californian farming magnate’s home and Imperial Valley properties in connection with the deadly shooting of his wife late last month.  

Kerri Ann Abatti, 59, was found dead from a fatal gunshot wound on Nov. 20 at around 9 p.m. in the couple’s affluent Pinetop, Arizona home, according to a news release from the Navajo County Sheriff’s Office.  

The 59-year-old, who is reportedly from Pinetop, had been living separately from her husband, Mike Abatti, during the couple’s ongoing divorce proceeding, which began in October 2023 when she petitioned to dissolve the 31-year marriage, citing irreconcilable differences, the Los Angeles Times reported.  

While she was seeking $30,000 a month in spousal support, the court awarded her $6,400 a month in temporary support as the value of the couple’s vast income from farming and other services, as well as real-estate holdings in California, Wyoming and Arizona, were being assessed by experts, court filings showed.  

Authorities said a search warrant was executed at Mike Abatti’s personal residence in El Centro, where Mike Abatti Farms is based, as well as multiple structures, two camp trailers and two vehicles associated with the Abatti family’s business operations.  

The Abatti family, according to The Times, owns and operates some of the largest farming operations in the Imperial Valley, where they grow cantaloupe, lettuce, broccoli, sugarbeets, onions and hay.  

The couple had donated more than $50,000 to San Diego State University, where a scholarship is offered in their name.  

According to the Desert Sun, Mike Abatti has been rewarded millions of dollars in publicly funded energy contracts and is well-connected with ties to family and friends in elected office, including a judge and district attorney, who have repeatedly made “decisions that have advanced Abatti’s private interests.”  

Very few details about Kerri Ann Abatti’s homicide have been released by investigators, nor has a suspect been named in the case.  

“These warrants were obtained and executed based on the results of the ongoing homicide investigation and evidence developed by detectives,” Navajo County investigators said. “This remains an active and ongoing investigation. Further information will be released when appropriate and when it will not compromise the integrity of the case.”