It’s hard to think of a California company that carries more toxic baggage than Cadiz Inc. The Los Angeles firm has been trying for more than 20 years to advance a plan to siphon water from under the Mojave Desert and pump it to users throughout Southern California.
After decades of unrestricted pumping in the rain-starved northwestern corner of the Mojave Desert, the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Basin Authority has the distinction of managing one of the most critically overdrawn aquifers in California.
A solution to help bolster Southern California’s water outlook during future droughts is taking shape in the Mojave Desert. Water transported in canals and pipelines has begun flowing into a series of basins carved into the desert, filling a large underground reservoir that will be available to draw upon in dry times.
In the Mojave Desert community of North Edwards, 5-year-old Adam Ezelle knows never to drink water from the tap, which contains dangerous levels of arsenic.
In the tiny farming and oil refining community of Fuller Acres, where a potent carcinogen has tainted groundwater wells, Maria Martinez and her family say they feel neglected by a state that has pledged clean water for all of its residents.
Downtown-based water infrastructure company Cadiz Inc. last month encountered yet another legal setback in its 25-year effort to convey water from its desert aquifer to a regional water aqueduct when a federal judge revoked a permit to use an old natural gas pipeline.
But far from putting its project on hold, Cadiz in subsequent days announced it would begin digging three new wells atop its aquifer and that it had completed an engineering study on converting the natural gas pipeline to carry water.
Desperation over water scarcity has produced any number of schemes to relieve the crisis. But few are as chuckle-headed as a plan to pump groundwater from beneath the Mojave Desert and transport it 200 miles to urban Southern California.
This is the Cadiz water project, which has been percolating along since the turn of the century.
On the bone-dry western flank of Arizona, where the Colorado River Basin meets the Mojave Desert, sit 11,000 acres of alfalfa, sorghum, wheat, and Sudan grass belonging to the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT), all destined to be harvested and sold for animal feed. For anything to grow here, irrigation is a must. Less than a quarter inch of rain has fallen so far this year, according to Josh Moore, who manages the farm on behalf of his tribe.
On the northern edge of the Mojave Desert, a new trauma has awakened old concerns: What happens if a town’s water gets shut off? The question keeps Danny Tolbert awake most nights. Two years ago his taps ran dry after a 7.1 earthquake nearly brought down his house and community. That was three months before his stroke, before he learned how diseased his heart was.
Downtown-based water infrastructure company Cadiz Inc. has codified through a management reorganization a shift in focus for its massive Mojave Desert land holding.
A California dam could fail during an extreme storm and send water flooding into Mojave Desert communities that are home to about 300,000 people, authorities said Friday.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that it has changed its risk characterization of the Mojave River Dam from low to high urgency of action. The Corps says it estimates that only 16,000 people in those communities would be affected by flooding.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
