It’s baaack: Zombie water project called Cadiz

Everyone’s favorite zombie water project is baaaack… but there’s a move afoot to lay it to rest for good with a new state law, AB 1000.

The Cadiz water project would pump 50,000 annual acre-feet of water from an ancient aquifer beneath Mojave Trails National Monument and sell it to Southern California suburbs. The Sierra Club has been fighting this plan since the 1990s when Cadiz Inc. introduced the idea of pumping water out of the desert and selling it to local water agencies.

The company seeks to drain 50,000 acre-feet of water every year for 50 years, which an analysis says is five times the aquifer’s natural recharge rate, according to a recent op-ed piece written by Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein calls this “a scheme that would drain vital aquifers in the Fenner, Bristol and Cadiz valleys — the heart of the Mojave.”

The project was on its deathbed after the Bureau of Land Management determined in 2015 that Cadiz needed to undergo federal environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act. That review would reveal just how much damage Cadiz would do to the Mojave’s essential springs and seeps, and that was expected to kill the project. But Cadiz came back to life this spring.

First, President Donald Trump declared that the project didn’t need a National Environmental Policy Act review. Then the White House placed Cadiz on a priority list of “Emergency and National Security” infrastructure projects. And then Cadiz crony David Longly Bernhardt was confirmed as Deputy Secretary of the Interior.

That’s when California Assembly member Laura Friedman (43rd District, including Glendale and Burbank) introduced AB 1000. The bill would require state environmental review of projects like Cadiz that threaten the Mojave’s fragile ecosystems. That review could kill Cadiz once and for all, and give the Mojave Desert a chance to remain healthy. To help fight the Cadiz project, contact Charming Evelyn, Water Committee chair, at bcharmz@aol.com.

This story originally appeared in the September 2017 Desert Report, newsletter of the Sierra Club California & Nevada Desert Committee.