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.
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill (SB 307) that prevents proposals to export desert water without state review. The bill goes into effect on January 1, 2020.
The bill protects federal and state lands, including Mojave National Preserve and Mojave Trails National Monument. It effectively stops the Cadiz Water Project which would extract water from an underground aquifer in the Mojave Desert and export it. Developed by Cadiz Inc., the project proposes to pump 16 billion gallons of water a year from the Mojave Desert aquifer.
The story behind a proposal to pump water from under the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County is a long and complicated one. Since its approval in 2012, the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project has been tied up in litigation from environmental groups, fought over in the state legislature and faced hurdles by state and federal government officials. Here’s more about the Cadiz water project: 1. Who’s behind it? The project is a partnership between Cadiz Inc., a Los Angeles-based natural resources company, and several Southern California water agencies. The company owns about 35,000 acres with water rights in San Bernardino County.
