Deep in the eastern Mojave Desert, rainwater trickles off limestone and granite mountains and collects in the crusted sponge of the desert’s ancient soil. The moisture feeds ephemeral lakes and seeps that bubble up in winter storms; it sustains springs that nurse wildlife through punishing summers. When it percolates beneath the surface, it replenishes aquifers whose contents date back thousands, even millions, of years. Scott Slater, the CEO of Cadiz, Inc., thinks that water is going to waste.