Karen Tracy of Joshua Tree protests a groundwater management plan for the Cadiz project outside a San Bernardino County Supervisors meeting last month. (KURT MILLER/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
BY JANET ZIMMERMAN
Press-Enterprise
Four environmental groups filed their second lawsuit against San Bernardino County on Thursday, Nov. 1, over a hotly contested proposal to pump water from Mojave Desert aquifers and send it to cities across the state.
The Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project would extract groundwater from an open valley beneath 45,000 acres that Los Angeles-based Cadiz Inc. owns south of the Marble Mountains, 40 miles east of Twentynine Palms. The area lies between the Mojave National Preserve and Joshua Tree National Park in eastern San Bernardino County.
The $225 million project would provide water for about 400,000 people served by six water districts throughout California, including Jurupa Community Services District in Riverside County.
On Oct. 1, county supervisors approved a groundwater management plan for the project that would allow them to shut down operations when the water table drops to a certain threshold. That action gave the go-ahead for the plan to pump 50,000 acre-feet per year.
In their lawsuit, the Center for Biological Diversity, National Parks Conservation Association, Sierra Club San Gorgonio chapter and the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society say San Bernardino County failed to provide an environmental review and did not comply with its own groundwater ordinance, designed to protect resources in the desert.
“This shortsighted water grab will benefit those pushing more sprawl in Orange County, but it’ll rob some of California’s rare species of the water they need to survive,” said Adam Lazar, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Our desert, the residents of San Bernardino County and Orange County ratepayers all deserve better.”
County spokesman David Wert disagreed. “We believe the groundwater ordinance was adhered to and the approval followed the county’s procedures. It was proper and in the best interests of the county and the environment.”
This is the third lawsuit challenging the project. The same four environmental groups filed a lawsuit Aug. 31 against San Bernardino County and an Orange County water district, contending the county should have led the environmental review of the project, not the Santa Margarita Water District in Mission Viejo, which has signed on as a future buyer of the water from Cadiz Inc.
The water district is named in the August suit for approving the environmental impact report on the project on July 31.
Also suing is Delaware Tetra Technologies Inc., which operates a brine mining operation at two dry lakes near Cadiz Inc.’s property. The company filed suit against San Bernardino County and Santa Margarita Water District, saying they violated state environmental law by not making the county the lead agency, instead of Santa Margarita.
Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, who has received more than $48,000 in campaign contributions from Cadiz in the past five years, has said the project would benefit the county by creating jobs and providing a hedge against uncertain water supplies from Northern California.
Environmentalists said the pumping would cause a drop in the water table that would dry up springs supporting bighorn sheep and other wildlife, could cause dust storms on nearby dry lake beds that would adversely affect air quality, and overdraw the water table.