Title: Debunking Former President Trump’s Inaccurate Tales about Beverly Hills Water Rules
Former President Donald Trump has a penchant for sharing intriguing, yet inaccurate stories on various topics. One such subject of his fictional tales is the household water rules in the affluent city of Beverly Hills, California, where he once owned a property.
During his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, Trump stated, “They’re notifying people in Beverly Hills, you can only use 40 gallons of water. They don’t have water,” he said after criticizing California’s water management methods. He further continued, “In Beverly Hills, you pay a fortune in taxes, they say you can only brush your teeth once a day.”
These remarks were not new; Trump had shared a similar story during California’s Republican convention in September, stating, “They pay millions of dollars in taxes, they’re taking a shower, they’re told to hurry up, you’re only allowed a small amount of water when they take a shower. That’s why rich people from Beverly Hills generally speaking don’t smell so good.”
While the last sentence was seemingly a joke, Trump presented these water restrictions in Beverly Hills as factual.
Facts First: All of Trump’s claims about Beverly Hills water rules are incorrect. Residents in Beverly Hills are not limited in their indoor water usage; there are no restrictions on the number of gallons of water used for brushing teeth or taking showers.
Beverly Hills does, however, enforce outdoor watering restrictions, allowing it only up to a maximum of two days a week among other rules. These limits are part of the statewide efforts to conserve water and deal with California’s recurring drought-related challenges in the context of a warming climate.
The spokesperson for Beverly Hills, Lauren Santillana, clarified via email on Saturday following Trump’s latest comments that “We do not limit water usage indoors and continue to educate, along with many other cities across the state, best water practices.”
Trump’s statement about “only 40 gallons of water” being allowed in Beverly Hills might have stemmed from a statewide standard signed into law by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022, setting a residential indoor water use limit of 42 gallons per person per day starting in 2030. However, this standard applies to the entities that supply water, not to residents individually.
Heather Cooley, director of research at The Pacific Institute – a California-based think tank dedicated to studying water issues – explained, “Individual households aren’t required to meet these standards. No one is required to meet it individually.”
Water suppliers can meet the standards by improving their leak detection and repair processes, offering incentives for residents to use more efficient appliances and devices, and implementing other measures to conserve water. The decline in US households’ water usage over the decades can be attributed to government-mandated product efficiency standards and building efficiency rules, among other factors.
