'Devastating': California had record rainfall last year, but lacked infrastructure to store it

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. 

"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."

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. 

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.

"That's true as far as it goes," he said, but despite these efforts, the salmon and smelt populations have not recovered. Additionally, there is growing concern that sturgeon may soon be classified as endangered as well. 

"These endangered fish are being used as the reason to leave water in the rivers," he said.

Urban areas, like Los Angeles, have highly developed drainage systems that channel stormwater directly into the ocean. They were originally designed with flood prevention in mind, not water storage, so this presents an additional challenge for the area. 

"The bottom line is they haven't spent money on it, and they've justified that by saying, we have to use less water," he continued. "And so they've been encouraging people, and in some cases, rationing, or even forcing people to use less water. And as a result, you don't have a system that's as robust."

One recent ex-California lawmaker said the state's lack of water infrastructure is "devastating California." 

"And here it's been all these years, and we haven't done a shovel full of dirt to move to make the project," Dahle said. "The project is just not funded, and we had $100 billion in surplus, and we didn't fund it. And so that's the frustrating part, I think, for most Californians, is that when we had the money, and we didn't do anything about it."

The largest of the wildfires, the Eaton Fire near Altadena and Pasadena, has scorched more than 27,000 acres, Cal Fire reported as of midday Thursday. 

When reached for comment, Newsom's spokesperson Izzy Gardon told Fox News Digital, "The Governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need."