A monumental flight over Mojave Trails

Mojave Desert Land Trust aerial tour shows splendor of national monument whose status could be reassessed

Amboy Crater is a significant geological feature of the Mojave Trails National Monument. Last week, the Mojave Desert Land Trust hosted an aerial tour as part of the third anniversary of the monument. [James Quigg, Daily Press]

By Matthew Cabe
Victor Valley Daily News

PALM SPRINGS — Storm clouds hovered over the city and patches of rain fell from above the nearby San Jacinto Mountains, but two Mojave Desert Land Trust officials arrived at the international airport here last week ready for a celebration.

Staff at the Joshua Tree-based nonprofit recently completed plans to commemorate the upcoming third anniversary of Mojave Trails, Sand to Snow and Castle Mountains national monuments.

All three were established Feb. 12, 2016, by former President Barack Obama through use of the Antiquities Act. Combined, they encompass nearly 1.8 million acres in the Mojave, Colorado and Sonoran deserts.

To offer a comprehensive view, MDLT partnered with the nonprofit EcoFlight for a series of flyovers within the Mojave Trails National Monument, which boasts 1.6 million acres and is the largest national monument in the 48 contiguous states, according to MDLT Communications Director Jessica Dacey.

Shortly before 10 a.m. Tuesday, Dacey and MDLT Education Coordinator Adam Henne briefed a group of passengers that included a Daily Press reporter and photographer.

“You get a bit of a buzz when you go up there,” Dacey said. “Especially coming from this angle ... you start to understand the seamlessness between the parks.”

Tuesday’s flight traveled first above Joshua Tree National Park, then over Sheep Hole Pass, which served as the Cessna 210′s entrance into Mojave Trails.

For Dacey and others, part of the monument’s importance is its function as a wildlife corridor connecting the national park and the Mojave National Preserve, the more than 1.5-million-acre swath of National Park Service land between interstates 15 and 40.

Within the monument, the Cady Mountains serve as one of the best areas in the Mojave Desert to see bighorn sheep, according to MDLT.

The North American population of the muscular animal with curved horns was once estimated in the millions. By 1900, human encroachment diminished bighorn sheep numbers to several thousand, National Wildlife Federation statistics show. Conservation efforts have since brought those numbers up to nearly 8,000.

Bonanza Spring, located near the monument’s northern border, is the only wetland for 1,000 square miles. Like the Cady Mountains, the spring is also home to bighorns and 70 bird species.

Dacey said the habitat connectivity created with the monument’s establishment allows many animals to roam, helps increase their populations and protects plant life they need to survive.

There are also unique historical and cultural aspects to the monument’s significance, she said.

Mojave Trails is home to the longest undeveloped section of U.S. Route 66. Preservation of the “Mother Road,” according to the World Monuments Fund, would equal positive economic effects like “sustainable tourism.”

The monument also includes some of the best-preserved sites from the World War II-era Desert Training Center where, under the command of Gen. George S. Patton, more than a million troops were trained on 18,000 square miles for desert combat in North Africa.

Deep within the vast expanse visible through the Cessna’s starboard-side windows, another geographical feature appeared, albeit inconspicuously from 2,500 feet above the desert floor.

The Cadiz Dunes Wilderness spans nearly 20,000 acres in the heart of the monument. The dunes appear to “hum in the wind,” Dacey told passengers.

“I think they’re more majestic than the Kelso Dunes in the Preserve,” she said.

Bruce Gordon, who piloted the Cessna, nodded in agreement from behind his aviators. Gordon founded EcoFlight in 2002 to advocate for environmental protection via programs and aerial visuals that expand public awareness of wild lands.

He couldn’t help but take his hands off the Cessna’s yoke to capture photographs of the pristine topography below. He used the 80-minute flight to share his own knowledge of the region.

Several concerns were noted, as well.

One, MDLT contends, is Cadiz Inc.’s planned water project, which would pull 50,000-acre-feet of water a year from an ancient aquifer beneath the Mojave Desert. The water would later be sold in Southern California.

Cadiz owns roughly 34,000 acres within Mojave Trails, Dacey said. Company officials have said the pumping would not harm the environment. Rather, the project would conserve surplus water lost to evaporation at nearby dry lakes.

Cadiz’s research maintains that Bonanza Spring would not be impacted by pumping. Other research published in 2018 called the company’s findings into question and said the project would threaten Bonanza Spring, according to MDLT, which funded some of the research.

Cadiz CEO and President Scott Slater has stated the company is confident of no interconnection between groundwater and water levels in Bonanza Spring, the company’s website shows.

MDLT officials say the project could harm the bighorns that use Bonanza Spring. Dacey said a pipeline for the project has not yet been constructed.

Gordon navigated the plane toward Amboy Crater, situated about three miles southwest of Roy’s Motel and Cafe. At 80,000 years old, Amboy is “North America’s youngest volcano,” Dacey said.

MDLT is one of several environmental groups working to secure Mojave Trails’ status, which Dacey said is “in limbo.”

In April 2017, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke — who resigned his post last month — to review national monuments of at least 100,000 acres that have been designated since 1996.

Trump’s goal was to determine whether the monuments needed reduction or elimination. Mojave Trails was subsequently included for review. Trump called the monuments, particularly Bear Ears National Monument in Utah, a “massive federal land grab.”

An initial report released in December 2017 included changes to 10 monuments. That same month, Trump signed proclamations that scaled back Bear Ears, as well as Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. In doing so, he declared, “Public lands will once again be for public use.”

Mojave Trails has not been altered, but Dacey said it’s never officially been declared safe.

When the monument was established, a management plan had to be drawn up by this month. That process was halted amid the Interior Department’s review. MDLT is part of a coalition working on a community proposal for a management plan. Dacey said the expectation is for it to guide future planning for Mojave Trails.

In 2016, visitors to Joshua Tree National Park more than doubled to over 2.5 million, prompting Park Superintendent David Smith to declare it was being “loved to death.” Dacey said attendance now is well over 3 million per year.

Amid the rise in popularity, as well as a massive clean-up effort underway in the damaged park following the partial federal government shutdown, groups are hoping to increase awareness of places like Mojave Trails as alternative destinations.

The question MDLT wants people to ask is, “What do these other public lands have to offer?” Dacey said.

From overhead, the answer seems simple enough.

Here’s why Cadiz company says it’s taking ‘a little pause’ from its desert water project

A pumping station designed to help Cadiz project researchers understand how quickly water seeps into the earth, migrate to the subterranean lakes. The Cadiz project hopes to pump water that would otherwise evaporate from their unique Mojave Desert site and make it available for municipal use and agriculture. Picture made at the Cadiz project site in the Mojave Desert on Monday, June 1, 2015.

By JIM STEINBERG
San Bernardino Sun

LOS ANGELES--Fresh from gaining the long-sought federal approval for its massive desert water project, Scott Slater, Cadiz president and CEO, said it’s time for the project to “slow down” a bit.

“We are going to take a little pause…and double our effort to allow people to understand this project,” Slater said. “We believe people should support an innovative project like ours.

The Cadiz project involves pumping billions of gallons of water annually from an underground aquifer in a remote part of the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County. The water would be piped to parts of Orange County and other locations, which could include San Bernardino County. Cadiz water could serve as many as 400,000 people.

This year, with the Trump administration running the Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management, the Cadiz project gained momentum.

The Obama administration had not supported the desert water project.

One environmentalist who has studied and followed the project for years, said pausing at this point strikes an odd note.

“They have waited years for this clearance, and now, after getting the blessing from the BLM, they take a pause?” said David Lamfrom, California Desert and National Wildlife Programs director with the National Parks Conservation Association.

Lamfrom said he believes the pause is really because the California Lands Commission has recently surfaced as a possible stumbling block to the project.

Cadiz downplays that notion.

“We want to be having conversations with stakeholders and decision makers,” Slater said of the company’s focus for the remaining weeks of the year.

Last month the Lands Commission wrote Cadiz, saying the company needs to fill out an application for a lease permit on a 200-foot-wide by 1-mile long slice of the project’s proposed 43-mile pipeline.

However, Cadiz management does not consider the state’s request to be a significant impediment. Whether the proposed use of railroad right-of-way falls within the state’s permit, issued in June 1910, is something for “an impartial judge” to decide, not the state land commission, the company contends.

Cadiz and Slater, are riding a crest, at least on the federal level. Much has changed in the past two years.

Legal turn-around

In October 2015 the Cadiz project was dealt a major setback when the Obama Administration’s Bureau of Land Management rejected the company’s use of an 1875 railway right-of-way to build a critical pipeline.

In statements, Cadiz has said that the BLM’s October 2015 evaluation “not only impeded the Cadiz Water Project but also set a troubling precedent for thousands of miles of existing uses of railroad rights-of-way in the West.”

Things began to change in September. The project got a huge boost when the Interior Department’s Office of the Solicitor issued an opinion which appeared to allow construction of a 43-mile pipeline from Fenner Valley — about 40 miles northeast of Twentynine Palms — to the Colorado River Aqueduct, where it could deliver water to potential customers.

Nevertheless, the opinion didn’t provide a clear green light.

The definitive victory came in October, when Michael D. Nedd, BLM acting director, cemented the government’s about-face in a letter to Slater.

The letter said the BLM’s October 2015 interpretation of the law no longer represents the agency’s viewpoint and has been rescinded. It also said the scope of the proposed activity does not require BLM authorization.

Groups opposed to the project were outraged.

“This just confirms what the administration has been signaling (since Donald Trump was sworn in as president). They will bend heaven and earth to try to move the Cadiz project forward,” Lamfrom said.

Slater has a different viewpoint:

The action of October 2015 was a “bogus act by the BLM” that took “two years for them to get right.”

Support for the project originated, not from the Trump administration, but a broadly based group of business and political leaders who advocated for what they believe is a good project, Slater said.

Labor groups, including North America’s Building Trades Unions, wrote Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, supporting the project, Slater said.

After receiving the BLM’s favorable ruling, Cadiz said it would turn its attention to final engineering design, contract arrangements with participating agencies and a conveyance agreement with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

Although the engineering plans are proceeding, Cadiz is not immediately applying to the Metropolitan water district for use of pipelines to transport its Mojave Desert water to customers. That will happen early next year, said Courtney Degener, a Cadiz spokeswoman.

Misconceptions

Slater said a major misconception he wants to address stems from an allegation that Sen. Dianne Feinstein made in late September. Feinstein, D-Calif., said allowing Cadiz water into the Metropolitan Water District’s system “could endanger the health of not only Cadiz’s customers but all 19 million Californians who rely on that water.”

Feinstein, who has long opposed the Cadiz project, contends the desert water is polluted with arsenic and Chromium-6.

Although Slater did not mention Feinstein by name, he said no company in California or the United States would be allowed to put water into a drinking water supply pipeline that does not meet state and federal standards.

Shortly after Feinstein questioned the safety of using the desert water, Cadiz issued a statement calling Feinstein’s remarks “irresponsible and not true.”

A state agency tasked with protecting California’s water supply seemed to back up the Cadiz company.

“Any water system that wants to bring on a new source of water must have the new source permitted, which would include sampling the new source for water quality before it was put into use,” said Andrew DiLuccia, spokesman for the State Water Resources Control Board.

Ongoing battle

For a time, the project faced a threat by a Feinstein-backed bill in the state Legislature that would have prohibited the Cadiz water transfer unless the state Lands Commission, in consultation with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, finds the project “will not adversely affect the natural or cultural resources, including groundwater resources or habitat, of those federal and state lands.”

But in early September, AB 1000, the bill to block Cadiz, was itself blocked in the state Senate Appropriations Committee.

A short time later, however, the state Lands Commission, asserted that it owned a 200-foot wide by one-mile long parcel along the path Cadiz plans to use for its 43-mile pipeline.

The Lands Commission’s chairman is Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who along with Gov. Jerry Brown, supported AB1000.

The Lands Commission sent Cadiz an application for it to complete. After Cadiz submits its application, commission staff members will analyze land ownership and the level of environmental documentation to be required before a decision is made, the state agency said in a letter to Cadiz.

The company is questioning the request.

Cadiz will comply with any “lawful condition” imposed by the Lands Commission but does not intend to fill out an application before there can be a discussion about what this state agency is seeking from Cadiz, Slater said.

Project pumping desert water for O.C. to begin next year

Cadiz Valley Water Project

BY TOMOYA SHIMURA
Orange County Register

Construction for a project that will pump drinking water from a Mojave Desert aquifer and pipe it to south Orange County is slated to begin early next year.

Los Angeles-based Cadiz Inc. plans to install wells to capture water from the natural aquifer that lies beneath 70 square miles of remote valley east of Twentynine Palms. The private developer which owns the land would also build an underground 43-mile pipeline along railroad right-of-way to the Colorado River Aqueduct, which delivers water to Southern California residents.

Once built, Cadiz plans to lease the facilities to a joint powers authority created by the Santa Margarita Water District, which will oversee day-to-day operation of the well and pipeline.

Santa Margarita hopes the project will reduce the district’s reliance on the wholesaler Metropolitan Water District, from which Santa Margarita buys 85 percent of its water. The MWD has increased water prices over the last two decades.

The well would pump some 16 billion gallons of water a year, and Santa Margarita plans to purchase about 20 percent of its water supply from the project. The district serves 165,000 people in Coto de Caza, Ladera Ranch, Rancho Santa Margarita and parts of Mission Viejo and San Clemente.

However, the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project has met resistance from a coalition of environmental groups, who argue the project would dry up desert springs and hurt vegetation and wildlife habitat.

The groups filed lawsuits after the project was approved by Santa Margarita’s board and San Bernardino County supervisors in 2012.

The plaintiffs claimed that Santa Margarita, not in the area the project will affect, shouldn’t have been the lead agency to oversee environmental reviews for Cadiz. They also said San Bernardino County violated its desert groundwater ordinance by approving the project.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Gail Andler shot down the lawsuits last year, stating that the plaintiffs had failed to prove the project would violate state environmental laws.

The Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club and San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society then appealed the decision to the state’s Fourth Appellate District in Santa Ana and filed their opening briefs in April.

“All cases were resoundingly denied in superior court, and we stand by that record and we think everything will be upheld by the court of appeals,” Cadiz spokeswoman Courtney Degener said.

The company is waiting for the MWD board to approve moving Cadiz water through its aqueduct later this summer and plans to start construction at the beginning of next year, she said. Cadiz is expected to spend $225 to $275 million on construction.

In addition to Santa Margarita, Cadiz has entered into agreements with the following water providers interested in buying water from the project, Degener said. They include: Three Valleys Municipal Water District, Jurupa Community Services District, Golden State Water Company, Suburban Water Systems, California Water Service Company, Lake Arrowhead Community Services District and San Luis Water District.

SMWD establishes agency to oversee Cadiz groundwater project

By TOMOYA SHIMURA
Orange County Register

A project that will pump drinking water from a Mojave Desert aquifer and pipe it to south Orange County has taken another step forward.

The Santa Margarita Water District board of directors recently approved establishing the Fenner Valley Water Authority to control and operate the delivery of the groundwater.

The district is moving forward with the plan after an Orange County Superior Court judge in May shot down lawsuits filed over the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project by environmental groups trying to stop the project.

District spokesman Jonathan Volzke said operating under the joint powers authority shields Santa Margarita and its customers from liabilities.

Los Angeles-based Cadiz Inc. plans to install wells to capture water from the natural aquifer that lies beneath 70 square miles of remote valley east of Twentynine Palms. The private developer which owns the land would also build an underground 43-mile pipeline along railroad right-of-way to the Colorado River Aqueduct, which delivers water to Southern California residents.

Cadiz is estimated to spend $225 to $275 million for the construction, spokeswoman Courtney Degener said.

There’s no timeline for the beginning of construction, Degener said. The company needs to reach an agreement with the Metropolitan Water District of Los Angeles on moving water through its aqueduct, she said.

The opposition has so far filed appeals in four of the six lawsuits, but the project will continue moving forward regardless, Degener said.

The well would pump some 16 billion gallons of water a year, and Volzke said Santa Margarita plans to purchase at least 5,000 acre feet a year, or 20 percent of its water supply, from the Cadiz project. The district serves 165,000 people in Coto de Caza, Ladera Ranch, Rancho Santa Margarita and parts of Mission Viejo and San Clemente.

Santa Margarita buys 85 percent of its water from the Metropolitan Water District, which has increased water prices each year for the last two decades, Volzke said. The Cadiz project could reduce the district’s reliance on the Metropolitan Water District.

“It would give us more local control over the cost of water,” Volzke said.

Once built, Cadiz plans to lease the facilities to the Fenner Valley Water Authority, which will oversee day-to-day operation of the well and pipeline.

Cadiz is trying to reach an agreement with other water agencies that have shown interest in buying water from the project, Degener said. They include: Jurupa Community Services District, Golden State Water Company, Suburban Water Systems, California Water Service Company and Three Valleys Municipal Water District, San Luis Water District and Lake Arrowhead Community Services District.

Superior Court Releases Final Decisions in Cadiz Project Environmental Litigation

Rulings Confirm Sweeping Victory for Project

Today, Orange County Superior Court Judge Gail Andler issued final Statements of Decision ("SOD") in the six outstanding California Environmental Quality Act ("CEQA") challenges to the approvals of the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project ("Cadiz Project"). The final SODs affirm the previously announced May 1, 2014 Minute Order issued by the Court, which denied all claims against the Project's environmental review and found that the Santa Margarita Water District ("SMWD") and the County of San Bernardino ("County") acted properly in approving the Cadiz Project and its permits.

"We are grateful for Judge Andler's decisions, which further validates what we have long believed: That Southern California water users can benefit from this immense, sustainable water supply without harming the environment," said Scott Slater, Cadiz CEO.

In accordance with California law, the Project went through a thorough and expansive environmental review and permitting process over 18 months from 2011 - 2012. After extensive public input and technical review, the Project's Environmental Impact Report ("EIR") was certified on July 31, 2012 by SMWD, the Lead Agency of the CEQA process. On October 1, 2012, the County Board of Supervisors, a Responsible Agency under CEQA, approved the Project's Groundwater Management, Monitoring, and Mitigation Plan under the County's Desert Groundwater Ordinance.

Lawsuits challenging these key approvals were filed in 2012 by various parties. Three cases were dismissed or settled in 2013 and six cases brought separately by the Center for Biological Diversity and Tetra Technologies (NYSE: TTI) proceeded to trial in December 2013 before Judge Andler. These cases alleged that the procedures followed and the quality of the analysis during the CEQA process were inadequate and sought a reversal of the core Project approvals. The final SODs set forth the basis for denying all of Petitioners' claims and validated the thorough environmental review of the Project.

Judge rejects environmental challenges to Mojave groundwater project

An aerial view of Cadiz Inc. property in the Mojave Desert in 2012. (Al Seib / LA Times)

by Bettina Boxal
Los Angeles Times

In a one-page ruling, an Orange County Superior Court judge last week swept aside environmental challenges to Cadiz Inc.’s plans to pump groundwater from beneath the Mojave Desert and sell it to Southern California suburbs.

The May 1 decision by Judge Gail Andler cleared one set of obstacles to the controversial project. “We’re grateful for that result,” Cadiz Chief Executive Scott Slater said. “We’re going to keep our head down and keep going about things the right way.”

But opponents vowed to appeal the ruling, and Cadiz still has several other hoops to jump through.

Lawsuits filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, and Tetra Technologies Inc., a corporation that extracts an industrial salt from the desert aquifer, challenged the project’s environmental review, calling it inadequate.

They also contended that San Bernardino County should have led the review, rather than the Santa Margarita Water District, which has signed an agreement to buy water from Cadiz.

Andler expressed concern over the district’s lead role but concluded that it “did not rise to the level” of a violation of state environmental law.

Adam Keats, senior counsel with the biological center, said his organization will appeal the decision. “This is a long-haul game for us, and we’re not giving up that easily. This is one opinion.”

Conservation groups, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and federal scientists have expressed concern that the pumping operation could dry up springs used by wildlife in the nearby Mojave National Preserve.

Groundwater in Cadiz’s proposed well field also contains naturally occurring hexavalent chromium, a carcinogen, at levels of 14 parts per billion to 16 parts per billion, exceeding the state’s new drinking water standard of 10 parts per billion.

That is likely to complicate Cadiz’s plans to use the Colorado River Aqueduct to deliver its supplies to customers more than 100 miles to the west.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which owns the aqueduct and uses it to send river water to millions of Southland residents, has said in formal comments that the Cadiz supplies would have to be treated before they could be pumped into the aqueduct.

“We’re pretty close to the standard,” Slater said. “We just don’t think it’s a significant issue for us.”

Also unresolved is whether the project will have to undergo a lengthy federal review. Cadiz wants to build a pipeline from the well field along an existing railroad right-of-way that crosses federal land.


The project is a precedent-setting private venture that proposes to annually withdraw enough groundwater from beneath the parched Mojave to supply 100,000 homes. Water sales could bring Cadiz $1 billion to $2 billion in revenue over 50 years.

Environmental documents show that the pumping would, over the long term, lower the groundwater table and deplete the aquifer under Cadiz’s property as well as surrounding public lands.

Cadiz experts have dismissed concerns about the operation, saying it will have minimal environmental effects.

Court OKs Dicey Cadiz Groundwater Pumping Project in the Mojave Desert

Ken Broder
AllGov.com

An Orange County Superior Court judge lined up six lawsuits filed to stop a controversial groundwater pumping project in the Mojave Desert and shot them all done in one brief legal opinion.

Judge Gail Andler ruled last week that Cadiz Inc. can move forward on its plan to divert surplus water from the Colorado River to an aquifer beneath 35,000 acres of land it owns, augment that supply by capturing water otherwise lost to nature, pump 16 billion gallons of water a year out of the aquifer and ship it via a 43-mile pipeline that hasn’t been built yet to the Colorado River Aqueduct.

The aquifer would be maximized with state-of-the-art conservation; participating water districts would contract for a share; thirsty Southern Californians would have a new, innovative source of water; and Cadiz shareholders would make a lot money. The shareholders got a jump on their end of the deal when the stock price rose around 30% the first business day after last Friday’s court ruling.

Cadiz has been pursuing the project for more than a decade, fending off environmentalists, desert residents, nearby mining interests, political watchdogs, water district officials and one honked-off Los Angeles Times columnist.

Michael Hiltzik described the project in 2009 in rather unflattering terms, seven years after the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) had already rejected it. He dismissed the existence of “surplus” Colorado River water, questioned the amount of water said to already be in the aquifer, wondered about the environmental hurdles and detailed some of the political wheels that were greased to advance the project.

Cadiz CEO and Board Chairman Keith Brackpool was appointed to the state Horse Racing Commission in 2009 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was elected chairman in 2010 before leaving last year. Schwarzenegger’s chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, worked for Cadiz for awhile and in 2005 received $120,000 in consulting fees while serving on the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC).

Brackpool and his associates contributed $43,650 to then-Los Angeles Mayor (and former Assembly Speaker) Antonio Villaraigosa and paid him a consultant fee while he was in between political assignments. He donated $345,000 to various campaigns by former Governor Gray Davis. San Bernardino County Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt picked up $10,000 in campaign contributions in 2007-08 and Congressman Jim Costa of Fresno received $12,000.

Conservation groups have long opposed the Cadiz project over concerns that pumping water from the aquifer would dry up springs that support bighorn sheep and other wildlife. Air quality and groundwater beneath the Mojave Preserve also could be affected. They said the environmental impact report and groundwater management plan were deficient and challenged the role of the Santa Margarita Water District in Orange County in approving them.

Delaware Tetra Technologies, Inc., a mining company, filed suit against the project at one point, arguing that a drop in the water table would adversely affect the mining of salt in nearby dry lake beds.

All of the objections hit a dead end in Judge Andler’s court, at least temporarily, although she expressed some reservations. Andler said the water district, which wants to buy some of the water, might not be the right entity to serve as lead agency. But she wasn’t going to block the project over that.

Litigants in the case, including the Center for Biological Diversity, San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society, the San Gorgonio Sierra Club and the National Parks Conservation Association, may appeal. Even if they don’t, Cadiz still faces significant challenges. The company has to build a pipeline across public land, which may involve federal review.

Judge rules in favor of water mining

By Janet Zimmerman
Riverside Press-Enterprise

A judge on Friday rejected legal challenges filed against a controversial plan to mine water from a desert aquifer and pipe it to cities across Southern California.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Gail Andler issued a brief decision that clears the way for the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project 40 miles east of Twentynine Palms.

“Cadiz is grateful for the thorough and deliberate review by the trial court and the court’s validation of the environmental review,” Scott Slater, the company’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.

The ambitious proposal to pump an average of 50,000 acre-feet per year — more than 16 billion gallons — from beneath the remote valley was challenged by the Center for Biological Diversity, National Parks Conservation Association, San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society, Sierra Club San Gorgonio chapter and Delaware Tetra, a brine-mining operation in the area.

Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity in Los Angeles, said the decision may be appealed.

“We are very disappointed,” she said.

The groups challenged project approvals by the Santa Margarita Water District in Orange County and San Bernardino County supervisors, as well as the environmental review, environmental impact report and groundwater management plan.

In her decision, Andler expressed concern over the designation of Santa Margarita Water District as the lead agency.

“Nonetheless, the court is not persuaded that those concerns constitute sufficient grounds” to halt the project, she wrote.

Santa Margarita is one of the potential buyers of the water, as is the Jurupa Community Services District in Riverside County and five other agencies as far north as San Jose.

Critics accuse Cadiz of overestimating the amount of natural water — such as rain — that will seep into the ground and replenish the aquifer. They also say the operation will drain the desert's precious water supply in the area between Joshua Tree National Park and the Mojave National Preserve.

Proponents say the project will spur economic growth by bringing a new source of water to a state plagued by drought.

Still at issue is a right-of-way application for a pipeline that would cross public land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. A federal review may be required.

Cadiz water project offers many benefits

Guest Commentary

By Scott Slater
San Bernardino Sun

While it is a common tactic for project opponents to distort facts and instill fear, everyone should be disappointed in recent a guest commentary by Bill Withuhn, which attacks the Cadiz Water Project and its railroad-related benefits.

Withuhn is a railroad professional, yet in his piece, he denies historical fact: Steam locomotives are firmly embedded in the history of the Mojave — not “an overheated absurdity.” Towns like Cadiz were founded by railroads as water stops for steam locomotives carrying passengers and supplies across the desert during the expansion of the West. Appreciation for steam trains carries on here today, so plans to integrate a steam train into our project are based on certainty that “if we build it they will come.”

After all, the planned steam locomotive route between Cadiz and Parker, Ariz., is centrally located to the desert’s most frequented destinations. Parker receives 750,000 visitors per year, Joshua Tree National Park has nearly two times that many, and annual visitor spending in the California deserts is $5.8 billion.

The truth fared even worse when the piece turned its attention to the water supply reliability Cadiz will offer. The project will capture and conserve groundwater that is being lost to evaporation from a vast Mojave Desert aquifer system, providing a new supply for 400,000 water users across Southern California. Because the piece aims to further the “us vs. them” fears worked up by project opponents, it stokes the familiar but false claim that Cadiz would only serve the Coast. In fact, 20 percent of project water is reserved for San Bernardino County and these local benefits cannot be denied, with Northern California and Colorado River water supplies becoming increasingly unreliable.

The piece also repeats the unfounded claim that the project has avoided environmental review. In fact, it was thoroughly reviewed under the nation’s toughest environmental law — the California Environmental Quality Act. A 6,000-page environmental impact report (EIR) found it would have no significant impacts on desert flora, fauna, water users or businesses, leading to project approval by two public agencies including San Bernardino County.

The commentary also omits that the county adopted a groundwater management plan to ensure the project’s pumping is sustainable. The plan requires data from 100 new groundwater monitoring installations be published online for public review, and gives the county independent power to shut the project down if any unexpected impact occurs.

It appears the article’s true intent is to shop for a second opinion on the project from D.C. regulators. That explains why it mischaracterizes our plans to place the project’s water conveyance pipeline within an active railroad right-of-way in order to avoid impacts to desert lands. It is commonplace in the Mojave and nationwide for railroads to lease their property to third parties for uses like water, fiber optic, gas and oil pipelines. Federal regulators have allowed railroads to do this with without their involvement. And it undeniably serves the public’s interest to tuck such infrastructure into already disturbed routes.

The project also will provide benefits to the host railroad that cannot be dismissed, including fire suppression. According to a 2013 California Public Utilities Commission report, increased crude oil movement by rail is a significant concern in the railroad industry today. Withuhn is no doubt aware of the exponential increase in movement of crude oil by railcar and the related fire risk along rail corridors, as evidenced by the 2013 oil train derailment in Canada that killed 47 people. Cadiz’s offer to provide water for remote-controlled fire suppression systems on the railroad’s wooden trestles is an investment that a railroad expert should applaud, not dismiss.

The Cadiz project was publicly reviewed and approved under the toughest environmental law, will be locally enforced and provide long-term benefits to the desert and railroad communities. To imply otherwise is the only “overheated absurdity.”

Scott Slater is president and CEO of Cadiz, Inc.

Mojave region’s public being railroaded

OPINION

By Bill Withuhn
San Bernardino Sun

You want your scarce groundwater sent to Orange County and L.A.? Read on.

It’s not a desert mirage: A proposed water project stands to create irreversible damage by pumping groundwater from underneath the Mojave Desert and sending it in a new pipeline to supply the Los Angeles/Orange County region. Project proponent Cadiz Inc. has requested the Interior Department waive standard federal review.

People in desert country might applaud waiving a federal law — at first. But the Cadiz Inc. project threatens desert residents, ranchers and local businesses by putting their groundwater in jeopardy. The project would also threaten the National Chloride Company’s brine mining operation. According to a local economist, pipeline construction might benefit San Bernardino County employment, but for just four years. Here then and then gone.

The project would pump 50,000 acre-feet of water annually from the Mojave Aquifer for 50 years. Starting near the town of Cadiz, the proposed pipeline would use the right-of-way of an existing railroad for about 45 miles till reaching the Colorado River Aqueduct near Freda.

Cadiz Inc. calls the pipeline a “railroad” project rather than a water project. Really?

This sleight of hand is bizarre. Cadiz Inc. wants to piggyback on a law that helps California businesses that use freight rail. Under that law, a railroad through public lands can undertake improvements within its established right-of-way without federal review.

The claims by Cadiz are a gross distortion. Its project would irreversibly harm public lands that taxpayers have paid for decades to protect. That includes state wilderness areas and the Mojave National Preserve — the third-largest national park site in the lower 48 states. Threatened are desert springs and many rare desert species, not to mention the livelihoods of local ranchers and business owners who never use the railroad. Cadiz foresees a $1-2 billion profit over a half-century, by pumping the Mojave Aquifer into overdraft.

In 2011, the Interior Department published a review concluding that a railroad’s authority to undertake activities impacting public land is limited to projects directly affecting rail transportation.

In its attempt to claim its project furthers a “railroad purpose,” Cadiz modified its proposal to install dozens of water hydrants all along the 45 miles of track for emergencies, construct a parallel access road, and provide water for weed control and “washing rail cars.”

A suitable road along the railway already exists — a public road, also used for rail safety inspections and access for track work. Water for mixing with approved weedkiller is a minor use limited to inside the railroad’s right-of-way (so no help with tumbleweeds), and only modestly useful in desert lands. Washing rail freight cars is, frankly, absurd. Nearly all freight cars transiting the line are owned and maintained by other railroads or companies.

Fire hydrants all along a remote rail line are also absurd. They have no justification for safety and have nothing to do with a “railroad purpose.” U.S. DOT’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) verifies that except within large railyards, no known railroad has strings of hydrants along its enroute lines. Diesel locomotives don’t need water added during trips, and firefighting or quick emergency response is done best by vehicles coming by the existing road. San Bernardino County’s fire department says the road is sufficient for the department’s rapid-response needs.

In its latest effort to mask its water-export project, Cadiz announced plans for a steam-powered tourist train, using Mojave Aquifer water. A steam engine running in this region is a further overheated absurdity.

Cadiz is unaware of the economics. From my direct experience of 40-plus years, safely maintaining a steam locomotive is about 20 times more expensive than even a 30-year-old diesel. The proposed route is extremely remote, without an adequate rail tourism market present or future. Steam trains tried in scarce-population areas have rapidly proven nonviable. That’s due to huge unavoidable costs and few paying tourist passengers to cover the bills. Cadiz proposes a cute steam excursion to burn money by the trainload.

The Interior Department owes to all Americans a review of high-risk water projects, so impacts can be vetted by those without stakes in the matter and vetted also by the affected public in the light of day.

Bill Withuhn is a former managing vice president of diesel freight-rail lines in five states. For operational steam engines, he served four years as co-chair of a U.S. DOT special committee developing today’s stricter safety standards, which have also cut operating costs. He lives in Camanche Lake, Calif.

Cadiz Water Project: Reader Rebuttal

READER REBUTTAL

By Robert S. Bower
Contributing Writer

A Register editorial opines the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project should go forward because Southern California needs water [“Drier than we have to be,” March 10]. Unfortunately, that view is based on misinformation and an “ends justify the means” mentality.

First, the misinformation. The project will not “store” imported water. Nor will it “conserve” groundwater – it will pump groundwater at a rate well in excess of the rate at which the aquifer is recharged, without any replenishment requirement. At the assumed recharge rate, Cadiz will overdraft the aquifer by 18,000-to-43,000 acre-feet, every year for 50 years. Once pumping starts, the aquifer will not recover for 117 years; if recharge is lower than assumed, recovery could take 440 years.

As for justification, the editorial claims Cadiz did its due diligence, and the only impediments to the project are those pesky lawsuits challenging the environmental impact report under “oppressive CEQA rules.” As a California Environmental Quality Act practitioner who usually defends EIRs, I am aware CEQA is sometimes used for political purposes. Here, however, it was Cadiz who gamed the system.

CEQA requires that the public agency with principal responsibility for approving the project act as lead agency, because the lead agency determines the EIR's scope and whether the project will proceed. The only agency with regulatory authority over the project was the county of San Bernardino, which had to approve a groundwater plan before Cadiz could pump groundwater.

Cadiz, however, orchestrated events so that Santa Margarita Water District was lead agency rather than San Bernardino County. SMWD's only approval was of its agreement with Cadiz concerning its purchase of project water.

A primary purpose of CEQA is to make elected officials accountable to their constituents. SMWD is located 225 miles away from the project, and virtually all project impacts will occur in San Bernardino County. Cadiz's maneuvering stripped away all accountability because SMWD's elected decision-makers are not accountable to voters in San Bernardino County.

The project should proceed only if the EIR complied with CEQA, not simply because we need water. It is a slippery slope when decisions are justified on the Machiavellian notion that the ends justify the means.

Robert S. Bower is counsel for Delaware Tetra Technologies Inc., which opposes the Cadiz Project.

State drier than we have to be

Water recovery project could ease drought.

OPINION
Orange County Register

Despite the recent heavy rain, California’s water situation remains dire. Data from the U.S. Drought Monitor, a partnership between the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, shows that 100 percent of California is “abnormally dry.”

It is the worst drought the state has seen in decades and is tapping our water resources to their limits, and, for many, beyond. Water agencies in some of the hardest-hit regions of the state are expecting to be without water by the summer.

It’s why Gov. Jerry Brown promised to do, “everything that is humanly possible to allow for a flexible use of California’s water sources.”

But the state still seems bent on pushing ahead with water policies that appear to make the drought artificially worse, from the New Deal-style public-works Bay Delta Conservation Plan boondoggle that seeks to upend the Sacramento Delta for dubious water supplies and the benefit of a bait fish, the Delta smelt, to projects closer to home.

Projects like the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project, meant to capture groundwater from a basin within a 1,300-square-mile watershed in San Bernardino County’s Mojave Desert.

The company argues that pumping out 50,000 acre-feet of water per year from under the desert, which would otherwise largely evaporate, would save Southern California $6.1 billion over a 50-year period and could provide 100,000 Southern California families, in six counties, another supply of water every year.

But, environmental groups, and a Texas-based oil company with a nearby strip-mining facility, continue to fight the Cadiz project through the courts using the state’s oppressive CEQA rules.

Nearby ranchers worry the pumping stations could deplete their wells and environmental groups say the water would be pumped out faster than it could be replenished. While these issues should be taken seriously, as it would be preferable to not deplete a new water supply as fast as it’s tapped, they have largely been mitigated by the process.

Because San Bernardino County is requiring even more stringent rules than came out of the two-year CEQA process. Requiring the company to track its operations, and if the water level is reduced 80 feet below the current water table, within a 2-mile radius of the project center, the project would be halted. Independent and final authority to enforce that rule rests with the county.

In all, four municipal agencies and two private utilities have signed on to the project, including some agencies that reside in southern Orange County. The project developers seem to have done their due diligence and efforts to expand and diversify water sources for residents of the Southland, which this project appears to do, is something these editorial pages have long supported. The government-created barriers to tapping water sources like this must change and this project be allowed to go forward undeterred.

California Looks to the Desert as Cadiz Proposes Tapping Aquifer

Irrigation sprinklers at Cadiz Ranch in the Mojave Desert for a planned lemon grove. They will use water from an underground aquifer (John Francis Peters)

By Peter Waldman
Bloomberg

California is parched. The state’s worst drought in decades has left its reservoirs half-naked, if not skeletal. Officials say 17 communities could run out of drinking water this summer; some are considering mandatory rationing; and 500,000 acres in the state may be left fallow.

For the first time in its 54-year history, the California State Water Project -- the world’s biggest plumbing network and the way millions of state residents get hundreds of billions of gallons of water -- is essentially shutting down. In 2012 the project moved 815 billion gallons of fresh water from Northern California’s rivers to 25 million people and a million acres of farmland in the arid central and southern parts of the state. Last year, the driest on record, the system delivered 490 billion gallons, down 40 percent. This year, the planned water distribution is zero.

Two-thirds of California’s 38 million people and most of its $45 billion farm products depend on snow-melt from the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountain watersheds, imported via thousands of miles of pipelines, canals, and the Colorado River. Although snowfall is up this winter in the Rockies, precipitation in both mountain watersheds has been going down over the last 14 years, raising scary questions for the nation’s most populous state: What if drought is the new normal? Where will California find the water it needs?

Scott Slater is convinced the solution lies underneath the Mojave Desert, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its March 10 issue. His company, Cadiz Inc. (CDZI), wants to tap an aquifer beneath 34,000 acres of the eastern Mojave and sell the water to suburbs and subdivisions in the Los Angeles Basin.

Sole Mission

Cadiz, whose only mission is to sell the desert water, has teamed up with a public water agency in southern Orange County in an audacious proposal to pump 16.3 billion gallons a year toward the coast. Some of it will flow 200 miles from the aquifer. The water will travel through a 43-mile pipeline that Cadiz wants to build along a railroad spur, then merge into the Colorado River Aqueduct into Los Angeles.

Several politicians, ranchers, and environmentalists call Cadiz’s proposal ludicrous. “How can a private company come out here and drain an entire basin of its groundwater for L.A.?” asks Ruth Musser-Lopez, an archaeologist in the Mojave town of Needles, Calif., 60 miles east of Cadiz’s land. “That took thousands of years to seep down from the mountains. Water is just way too precious in the desert to let them take it away.”

Some potential beneficiaries of the plan are skeptical, too. “To take that water from the desert and use it to fill Mission Viejo’s lakes? It’s absurd,” says Debbie Cook, the former mayor of Huntington Beach, Calif.

Shares Jump

Yet things have gotten dire enough that some Californians are ready to listen. During the week Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency on Jan. 17, Cadiz’s stock price jumped 23 percent, closing at $8.61 a share on Jan. 21, a 15-month high. Slater, a water lawyer who was named Cadiz’s chief executive officer last April, already has the necessary permit to pump from San Bernardino County, where the aquifer is located. He also has six utilities in the Los Angeles area eager to buy the desert water.

“The state needs projects like this,” says Slater, 56. Tall and lanky with gray-specked blonde hair, he sits in the company’s 28th-floor headquarters overlooking downtown L.A. Prior to coming to Cadiz, Slater spent almost a decade representing the San Diego County Water Authority in the biggest farm-to-urban water transfer in U.S. history. He’s written a two-volume textbook on California water law and has litigated some of the state’s biggest water fights in recent years. In addition to running Cadiz, he remains a partner at Denver-based firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP.

Wanted Molecules

Slater’s confident his plan can work. “I want those molecules,” he says. “We’ve harmonized uses in a way that’s balanced and makes sense. This is an environmentally benign project that will help California overcome systemic water shortages.” Cadiz hasn’t earned a profit in 24 years and has yet to sell water. But it’s been even longer since California had a drought like this.

Cadiz was founded in 1983 by British impresario Keith Brackpool and Mark Liggett, a mining geologist. They were looking for water sources that could be developed for farming and sale to California’s burgeoning cities, says Timothy Shaheen, Cadiz’s chief financial officer. After studying NASA images from space, Liggett persuaded Brackpool that the Fenner Gap, in the eastern Mojave, was the right spot.

Railroad Hamlet

Fenner Gap, where the aquifer lies, sits on the confluence of three watersheds spanning four desert mountain ranges. Cadiz bought a patchwork of plots from the railroads, amassing 34,000 acres in the Cadiz and Fenner valleys, plus 11,000 elsewhere in the Mojave. Cadiz took its name from the old railroad hamlet and valley just south of Fenner Gap, where an old Santa Fe railroad spur breaks southeast toward Parker, Arizona, and on to Phoenix. Santa Fe tankers used to supply fresh water from Cadiz Valley wells to silver, talc, and limestone mines in the area.

The company planted about 600 acres of grapes and citrus but had trouble making money, largely because of the expense of diesel to power the irrigation pumps, Shaheen says. The sole purpose became selling water. What Cadiz lacked in lemons, it made up for in juice. Spending personal money and cash raised from investors and lenders, Brackpool and Cadiz became big campaign contributors in California, giving to candidates in both parties, particularly former Governors Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Politicians Employed

At various times, Brackpool hired Antonio Villaraigosa, a former state assembly speaker and L.A. mayor; Bruce Babbitt, a former U.S. secretary of the Interior; and Susan Kennedy, ex-chief of staff for Schwarzenegger. Former Democratic U.S. Representative Tony Coelho served on Cadiz’s board.

Cadiz declined to make Brackpool, also 56, available for an interview. He remains chairman after ceding the CEO post to Slater and taking a 31 percent cut in base pay, to $275,000 a year. He keeps racehorses in the U.S. and England and owns the Manhattan Country Club in Manhattan Beach. Brackpool was named chairman of the California Horse Racing Board by Schwarzenegger in 2010 and last year became CEO of the Santa Anita racetrack. Liggett is retired from Cadiz.

The company’s last major water transport plan, conceived in the mid-1990s, called for storing excess Colorado River water under Cadiz lands, then selling it to coastal communities during droughts.

Met’s Decision

Cadiz stood to make as much as $20 million a year in revenue from the deal, which it pitched to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Known simply as the Met, the public agency based in Los Angeles distributed about 554 billion gallons of water to 19 million residents in Southern California last year, most of it imported from the State Water Project in Northern California and the Colorado River. After six years of development and controversy, the Met killed Cadiz’s Colorado storage plan in 2002.

In the aftermath of the decision, Cadiz’s stock tanked, but the company still paid Brackpool a $233,000 bonus in 2002, on top of his $500,000 salary. Lenders and investors covered the company’s losses from 2003 through 2012 with multiple cash infusions, lured by the prospect of pumping water someday to L.A. Meanwhile, Brackpool received $14.4 million from Cadiz in salary and stock over the 10-year period, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

“I always wondered if this wasn’t some sort of Ponzi scheme,” says Cook, the former Huntington Beach mayor. She says she couldn’t understand why Brackpool was paid so well for an incomplete project at an unprofitable company.

‘Regulated, Audited’

Cadiz Vice President Courtney Degener strongly objects to Cook’s musings, writing in an e-mail that Cadiz is “a regulated, audited, publicly traded company” and “information that unequivocally demonstrates that Cadiz is not a Ponzi scheme is readily available.” Degener defended Brackpool’s compensation as shareholder-approved and consistent with the long-term nature of the development.

In 2008, Slater, who had just joined Cadiz as general counsel, began repitching the company as a fresh water supplier. Because there’s no excess flow in the Colorado any longer, he put off the storage component and rebranded, without irony, Cadiz’s plan to pump the desert aquifer as a “conservation, recovery and storage project.” Wells on the property will suck water from the underground rock formations and pump it through the 43-mile pipeline before it merges into the Met’s aqueduct carrying Colorado River water from Arizona to the Los Angeles Basin.

Conservation Pumping

Slater says he wants to “conserve” the desert aquifer by pumping water out at a rate that’s more than 50 percent faster than the aquifer naturally replenishes. As a result, the water table, or the level below the ground where the water lies, would drop as much as 80 feet.

That may not sound like conservation, but Cadiz consultants say pumping out the “temporary surplus” will reverse the aquifer’s natural underground flow, keeping the water from migrating into a pair of nearby dry lakes, where it would evaporate. “Under state law, evaporation is waste. It’s called ‘unreasonable use,’” says Slater. “You don’t let water leave the system if you can harvest it.”

The Santa Margarita Water District in southern Orange County, Cadiz’s partner in the project, wants to use some of that harvested water. Right now the area’s water comes entirely from the Met, says Dan Ferons, the agency’s general manager. Santa Margarita plans to co-develop the desert aquifer to reduce its dependence on the Met by “diversifying our portfolio,” Ferons says. Cadiz has agreed to pay almost all development costs. The desert water isn’t meant to facilitate new real estate projects; all planned expansion in the district has already been accounted for, he says.

‘Paper Water’

Slater says the desert water bonanza won’t feed unsustainable growth around L.A., but history suggests otherwise. In a 2009 report called “Paper Water,” Orange County’s civil grand jury lambasted Santa Margarita’s water planning. California law requires real estate projects with 500 or more units to get a “water supply assessment” from a water provider assuring it can service the new development. Santa Margarita’s 2003 assessment for a 14,000-unit development called Rancho Mission Viejo was “based on a series of assumptions” about water availability “that have long since been superseded” by drought and other changes, wrote the citizens’ watchdog group empaneled by the county. Rancho Mission Viejo is moving forward, while other proposals to build a toll road and housing on the county’s southern coast remain held up by regulators.

Growth Questioned

“The desert aquifer is tied to growth on the southern coast. Why else would a small Orange County water agency do a project in the middle of the desert?” says Conner Everts of the Southern California Watershed Alliance. “We call these ‘zombie water projects’ -- projects that come back to life when people worry about drought. At some point California is going to have to make water a much more serious part of land-use decisions.”

Past droughts have produced zombie proposals such as bringing icebergs from Alaska by barge and towing acre-size plastic bags filled with water from Northern California rivers. This time around critics are sneering at Governor Brown’s $15 billion plan to bore a pair of 30-mile tunnels east of Sacramento to channel Sierra Nevada runoff to critical agricultural land. The Poseidon desalinization proposal for northern Orange County, an area with plentiful groundwater and a successful water reuse program, also draws ridicule from Everts and other environmentalists, who say desalting seawater is expensive and emits greenhouse gases. “It’s like Cadiz. These things just don’t die,” he says.

Rancher’s Springs

In the Mojave National Preserve above Fenner Gap, cowboy-poet Rob Blair, 57, has been running cattle on about 400,000 acres of federal land since childhood. Five generations of his family have lived in the same house on the 7IL Ranch, the last ranchers left in the preserve. His dad, 87, still lives there; so does his son, Cody, 22, who helps run the ranch.

Blair is worried that although Fenner Gap is about 40 miles away and 1,000 feet below the ranch, pumping the aquifer could dry up the springs in the preserve that sustain his 400 cattle. The National Park Service, in written comments on the Cadiz project in 2012, said it’s “likely” some springs in the preserve are connected to the aquifer, a claim that Slater says makes no scientific sense. The Park Service also said Cadiz’s contention that the aquifer refills at the rate of about 30,000 acre-feet of water a year is “not reasonable and should not even be considered.”

‘No Margin’

Blair has seen it take three years for storm runoff in the distant Providence Mountains to reach some of his wells. “There’s no margin for error,” he says. “If they start pumping and our water drops, I go out of business. They got no business taking our water to waste on lawns and sidewalks and swimming pools.”

Blair’s ranch and the Mojave National Preserve are protected by strict limits mandated by San Bernardino County in permitting Cadiz’s pumping plan, says Christian Marsh, the county’s special counsel. The county signed off on the Cadiz project after extensive due diligence and only when Cadiz agreed to monitor its pumping’s impact on springs and wells throughout the area, says Marsh. If the water table drops below 80 feet, all pumping must stop. “The only way you’ll know how the system reacts is to start pumping,” he says.

Blair is unconvinced. “Once they start pumping, it isn’t coming back.”

Customer-Led Review

Slater says he’s hoping Cadiz will clear another hurdle in a few weeks, when a state judge in Orange County rules on whether it was appropriate for Santa Margarita, the project’s co-developer and water customer, to lead the environmental review, rather than San Bernardino County, where the impacts will occur.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, who authored the bill that created the Mojave National Preserve in 1994 and sees the Cadiz pumps as a threat to one of her signature achievements, is keeping a close eye on the company. In January, the Democrat inserted a rider into a budget bill that bars the Department of the Interior from spending any money this fiscal year on reviewing the project for permits. “Severely drawing down the aquifer could damage that region of the Mojave Desert beyond repair,” she wrote in an e-mail. “The bottom line is that right now we need more responsibility in how we use our water, not less.”

Slater says he can be patient: “My 8-year-old son told me sometimes being cool means doing unpopular things.”

Cadiz project would drain our lifeblood from the desert

Guest commentary

By Jay Cravath
San Bernardino County Sun

Newspapers recently reported that Congressman Paul Cook, representing the northern Mojave Desert, called for a federal review of the Cadiz Water Project. The proposal to take groundwater from an aquifer that includes the Mojave National Preserve prompted his action. Numerous environmental groups, including the National Parks Conservation Association, the Great Basin Water District, farmers and ranchers, all have been vocal in their stringent opposition. The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors’ approval of the project last October ignited a fire storm.

Yet with all the opposition and vitriol — articles, editorials and lawsuits — the interests of an important constituency are missing. Certainly the project will draw more water than the aquifer can replace; it will pose a threat to the ranchers, rural communities and East Mojave landowners; and yes, it will do long-term harm to the springs of the precious Mojave National Preserve. However, concern for this sweeping landscape’s first citizens is conspicuously missing.

We, the Chemehuevi, along with our neighboring tribes, have traveled Mojave’s trails for a thousand years. For us, the New York Mountains are akin to the Hebrews’ Mount of Olives; the forests of the Ship Mountains, our Cedars of Lebanon. Nuwü, The People, consider those springs as important for reasons other than physical survival. Anthropologist Catherine Fowler describes our springs and streams as “highly symbolic sacred places, part of a living landscape, a storied land peopled with animals, plants and other beings that brought it life and gave it meaning.” We have stories, sung and told, exalting the names of this lifeblood. These tales celebrate our travels, hunts and gatherings. They were woven into the fabric of our own “Old Testament” and give us our belonging to the place.

The trails that cross and intersect this vast and compelling space are also honored through the Salt Songs. These songs are still sung today, and they traverse the landscape, describing symbolic and actual journeys. They are recited in cycles, often of four — a sacred number for us. They guide us on the trails through the geography of their text. Perhaps the lyrics will instruct: “By the three circled peaks with the bloom of mesquite between. Shade and a quiet pond, the tender shoots.”

The Creator, Ocean Woman, “sprinkled particles of her skin upon the sea to create a patch of earth, which she stretched to present size,” reminds Dr. Fowler. What could be a more powerful metaphor for our connection to the land than this from our origin story?

In a recent keynote address to the National Clean Energy Summit, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell touted the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP) as a long-term approach to planning for public spaces, yet giving stronger voice to the land and new sensitivity to its original stewards. “Landscape-level conservation objectives” are said to embrace a comprehensive approach that considers the overall health, sustainability and even aesthetics of the landscape. But this is not the case. Instead, the DRECP offers a method to commercialize discrete bits of real estate to private contractors and owners. Dividing our sacred lands into pieces is nothing new to us. Alongside conservation groups, we call for a more far-reaching vision of this earth and water.

Since ancient times, we have seen the land as connected, not to be divided into disparate chunks. Whether the Interior Department’s commitment to a paradigm shift is real or a semantic glitch remains to be seen in the implementation.

On Cadiz, however, we stand firm in rejecting the greed and narcissism of those who would put their corporate bottom line above the rest of us. As this process moves forward, any decision must also weigh the sacred nature of these lands to the Chemehuevi and our fellow nations.

Jay Cravath is cultural director of the Chemehuevi Tribe.

Plans unveiled for Mojave Desert tourist train, museum

As part of its plan to mine underground water supplies, Los Angeles-based Cadiz Inc. is proposing a tourist steam engine, museum and cultural center in the Mojave Desert.

BY JANET ZIMMERMAN
Press Enterprise

Cadiz Inc., the Los Angeles-based company proposing a water mining operation in the Mojave Desert, released plans Friday, Sept. 20, for steam train excursions and a museum, but environmentalists called it a ploy to avoid federal review of its groundwater pumping project.

The Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project would extract groundwater from beneath 45,000 acres that Cadiz 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.

Environmental groups have filed lawsuits to block the $225 million development, which would provide water for about 400,000 people served by six water districts throughout California, including Jurupa Community Services District in Riverside County.

The pipeline would run along 43 miles of track owned by the Arizona & California Railroad Co. Because part of the railroad right-of-way crosses federal lands, environmentalists say the project is subject to federal review under the National Environmental Policy Act, which would evaluate environmental impacts.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, and Rep. Paul Cook, R-Yucca Valley, have called for a federal review of the project and questioned its impacts on the Mojave National Preserve.

To avoid a government evaluation, the Department of the Interior requires that the pipeline along the right-of-way must have a direct impact on the rail system.

On Friday, Cadiz announced its agreement with the railroad to use its tracks. As part of the agreement, Cadiz will provide water from the project to power the trains, wash dirty freight cars run by Arizona & California, and supply fire hydrants along 35 wooden railroad trestles, Cadiz President Scott Slater said.

Seth Shteir California desert senior representative for the National Parks Conservation Association, accused Cadiz of concocting the tourist train idea to avoid scrutiny by the U.S. Geological Survey of its inflated recharge rates in the ancient aquifer.

Cadiz plans to pump an average of 50,000 acre-feet per year – more than 16 billion gallons – from beneath the remote valley.

In environmental documents, Cadiz says the recharge rate is 32,500 acre-feet per year, but independent estimates have placed recharge at 2,000 to 10,000 acre-feet per year.

The National Park Service has said the project would likely drain surrounding springs that supply water for wildlife.

Slater said an earlier version of the pumping project, which was larger and more impactful, already cleared federal study. The previous version crossed open public lands, but this one was intentionally placed on an active railroad right-of-way to avoid environmental impacts.

“What they’re looking for is duplicative. They’re interested in shopping until they can get somebody who agrees with them,” Slater said.

The company said the Cadiz Southeastern Railway would also draw in tourist dollars with a depot-style museum and cultural center on the Cadiz property that would include information on the local desert and railroad history. Slater wants to make it a destination.

One of the steam engines would be locomotive 3751, built in 1927 and housed at California Steel Industries in Fontana. The restored engine is owned by the San Bernardino Railroad Historical Society. Cadiz is also negotiating to buy two engines and rail cars that can be opened up to provide star gazing, Slater said.

“The steam train is an original fixture of the Cadiz area - an important historical asset intimately connected to the local culture – and offers a rewarding way to invest locally and promote the unique desert environment,” Slater said in a statement. “As a 30-year member of the Mojave Desert community, we have long appreciated the area’s majesty and appeal and are proud to diversify our business with this exciting new venture.”

The Cadiz railroad would operate on existing tracks on a portion of the Arizona & California Railroad Co. between Parker, Ariz. and Cadiz, with water stops in the California desert communities of Milligan, Chubbuck, Rice and Vidal.

The Mojave Desert Route, off historic Route 66, “provides sweeping views of the vast desert wilderness, mountainous terrain and the Colorado River,” the company said.

Brad Ovitt, a senior vice president for Genesee & Wyoming Inc. in Darien, Conn., which owns the Arizona & California railroad, said the track-sharing deal is a first in this region for his company. Terms of the agreement are confidential.

Needles City Council reiterates objection to water project

By JENNIFER DENEVAN
Needles Desert Star

NEEDLES — In a split vote, city council members approved sending a copy of an earlier letter stating their opposition to the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project to several more recipients.

There was some confusion during the Aug. 27 meeting as to who received that first letter, which was sent about a year ago. The letter, which stated the council’s disapproval of the project, was sent to Cadiz and was included in the environmental impact report being completed at the time.

Council member Tom Darcy wanted to have that same letter disbursed to additional people. His motion included sending the letter to state senators, San Bernardino County Supervisor Robert Lovingood and to government officials in Sacramento.

Lesley Thornburg, operations manager for Cadiz, Inc., gave a presentation regarding the Cadiz water project to council in the Aug. 27 meeting. She spoke on various elements of the project Cadiz has planned and the benefits it will have for the area.

Thornburg gave background regarding Cadiz. The company was founded in 1983 and owns 45,000 acres of land. They also have water rights in three San Bernardino County locations.

They’ve been farming on their land for 20 years and farm organic grapes, citrus and other types of crops, she said. The focus of the presentation was the water project.

She said the phase I portion of the project is completely approved, having completed the California Environmental Quality Act. The next steps include complete construction of a well field, natural gas power resource and solar facilities.

Cadiz plans to construct a 43-mile buried pipeline to the Colorado River aqueduct within an Arizona-California Railroad right of way. They would deliver, on average, 50,000 acre-feet of water annually to providers over a 50-year period that’s subject to a management plan, she said.

Thornburg said it will be a new reliable source for more than 100,000 families every year. Water users in six counties, including San Bernardino, Riverside, Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura and Imperial, would all receive water. The largest portion would stay in San Bernardino County, she continued.

Thornburg also discussed various projected benefits of the project. She claimed there will be many benefits to the community, including stimulation of the local economy, reduction of demands on Colorado River water, creation of just under 6,000 jobs and will mean about $6 million in tax revenue. Of that, about $600,000 will go to the school district, she continued.

Tom Henderson, project lead for the hydrology portion, also spoke. He reviewed elements of the project. He explained how all the rigorous measuring and testing corroborated the recharge that’s estimated.

He said Cadiz knew there would be questions about the recharge, they also did a variety of “what if” situations and modeled them. There was no significance impact found in any of those scenarios, he added.

Henderson also pointed out the project did get CEQA certified and CEQA is the most stringent environmental law in the U.S. No problems were found with the project, he added.

He said there are several early warning features set up to evaluate the response of the project to actual pumping and if not acting as predicted, the project would be adjusted.

It’s not optional, he said. San Bernardino County will regulate and provide oversight.

Darcy expressed several concerns about the project, including concerns about water being sent to Los Angeles and Orange Counties. Other council members echoed his comments, making statements of how those counties need to find other ways to serve their residents.

Additional concerns centered on how much water is proposed to be pumped and the potential negative impacts if there isn’t recharge. Council members generally agreed that sending another letter to show their continued disapproval of the project is needed.

Terry Campbell, council member, said he doesn’t approve of the project, but he also didn’t agree with sending another letter. “Have you really thought what you’re asking for?” he asked.

Campbell said the problem with a letter is that it may encourage federal government to step in and would possibly mean taking away private citizens’ property rights, which isn’t right. He felt it best to not take any action, he added.

There were additional comments made regarding previous situations where property rights were taken away and the possible negative impacts of the project. Sending a copy of the original letter to more representatives won out for the night.

Cadiz company spokeswoman claims water project safe, sustainable

By JENNIFER DENEVAN
Needles Desert Star

NEEDLES — While the city council decided to reiterate their stance on the Cadiz water project during their meeting Aug. 27, Cadiz also had a response.

“The Project has been reviewed and approved under the most stringent environmental law in the United States and includes unprecedented enforcement measures to ensure that operations are safe and sustainable,” Courtney Degener, Cadiz spokeswoman, said in a prepared statement.

The response comes after the council voted to resend a letter disapproving of the Cadiz water project. They approved sending the letter to government officials in Sacramento, state senators and Robert Lovingood, San Bernardino County District One Supervisor.

“We were disappointed in the action taken by the Council this week, because Needles, which is 80 miles away from the project area and in an entirely different watershed, is one of the population centers that would benefit from employment opportunities and new tax revenue offered by the project, including $1,000 per pupil for Needles’ students every year,” she said.

“Additionally, San Bernardino County and the desert will receive significant water supply benefits from the project - more than 20 percent of project supplies have already been reserved for county-based water uses - and the city of Needles could easily take delivery via an exchange along the Colorado River,” Degener said.

“We appreciate the support of the local business community and look forward to ultimately working with the Council to deliver the many real long-term local benefits promised by the project,” Degener said.

Chemehuevi Tribe Weighs In Against Cadiz Desert H2O Extraction Project

San Bernardino Sentinel

NEEDLES — The Chemehuevi Tribe has added its protest to the growing chorus of opposition to the Cadiz Water Project, which is purposed to transfer up to 50,000 acre-feet of water from the East Mojave Desert to Orange and Los Angeles counties and was given project approval by an Orange County Water District last year but is now being contested by eleven lawsuits.

The project is an undertaking of Los Angeles-based Cadiz, Inc., which since the 1980s has operated a 500-acre organic grape, citrus, melon and pepper farm in the Cadiz Valley. Cadiz, Inc. arranged to have the Santa Margarita Water District, to which it is contracted to deliver a portion of the water to be extracted from the desert, to assume lead agency status for the project’s approval. Many of those opposed to the project considered that to be a conflict of interest. San Bernardino County contemplated but in March 2012 ultimately elected against challenging Orange County-based Santa Margarita’s assumption of that lead agency status on the project.

Instead on May 1, 2012 the county entered into a memorandum of understanding with that district and Cadiz, Inc. and its corporate entities, including the Fenner Valley Mutual Water Company, allowing Santa Margarita to oversee the environmental impact report for the project and conduct the public hearings related to project approval. On October 1, 2012, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors gave approval to a groundwater monitoring plan to facilitate completion of the project

The project generated eleven lawsuits in which San Bernardino County, Santa Margarita and Cadiz, Inc. have been named as defendants. Even before those lawsuits materialized, the county, on March 27, 2012, retained the San Francisco-based law firm of Downey Brand to assist county counsel in responding to any lawsuits it contemplated might be triggered by the project at what was then said to be a not-to-exceed cost of $449,322. Since that time, however, legal costs have escalated and the county has now earmarked $1,449,332 to pay for outside legal counsel to represent the county with regard to legal challenges to the project.

The lawsuits allege that the project will drain the aquifer in both the Cadiz Valley and nearby Fenner Valley, wreaking environmental harm; that the approval process for the project which allowed a water district in Orange County more than 217 miles from the project area to serve as the lead agency for the project and oversee its environmental certification violated state and federal environmental laws; that the county of San Bernardino failed to abide by its own desert groundwater management plan in approving the project; that the environmental impact report for the project was inadequate; and that approval of the project violated provisions of both the National Historic Preservation Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and that the Bureau of Land Management failed to conduct a proper review of the cultural and environmental impacts of the project; that the extraction of the water will interfere with salt mining and other preexisting industrial operations in the area; and other issues.

Plaintiffs include Delaware Tetra Technologies, which operates a salt and mineral mine in the Fenner Valley, the Center for Biological Diversity, the National Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, the International Union of North America Local No. 783, the National Parks Conservation Association, the Colorado River Branch of the Archaeological Heritage Association, Santa Margarita Citizens and Ratepayers Opposing Water Nonsense, and Rodrigo Briones.

Among those inveighing against the project are U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein and former as-sistant San Bernardino County administrative officer John Goss. Feinstein has publicly stated that the project’s proposed extraction of more than one million acre-feet of water from the Eastern Mojave Desert over the 50-year life of the project will significantly exceed the United States Geological Survey’s estimate of the area’s recharge capability. Goss, who drafted the county’s desert groundwater management ordinance before it was adopted in 2002, said that ordinance was violated when the memorandum of understanding between the county, Cadiz, Inc. and the Santa Margarita Water District had been entered into before a groundwater management plan for the Cadiz project was adopted.

Now joining Feinstein and Goss are members of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe. Jay Cravath Ph.D., cultural director of the Chemehuevis, said the tribe has “deep concerns” regarding the project. “It will draw considerably more water than the aquifer can replace. It will pose a threat to the ranchers, rural communities and East Mojave landowners. It will do long-term harm to the springs of the precious Mojave National Preserve.”

Cravath went on to state, “What has not been part of the debate is the fact that those are among the ancestral lands of the Chemehuevi. We have traveled the trails for a thousand years. For us, the New York Mountains are akin to the Hebrews’ Mount of Olives; the forests of the Ship Mountains, our Cedars of Lebanon. The ancestors considered those springs not only the life-giving flow, but sacred blessings of mother earth. As this process moves forward, any decision must also weigh the sacred nature of these lands to our tribal members, and those who came before.”

Cadiz water project takes most of congressman’s visit time

By JENNIFER DENEVAN
Needles Desert Star

NEEDLES — A visit by Rep. Paul Cook of California’s 8th Congressional District mostly focused on the Cadiz water project as many residents who attended the Aug. 7 meeting made comments regarding the project.

Mayor Ed Paget, joined by Needles City Council Members Jim Lopez, Linda Kidd, Terry Campbell, Tom Darcy and Shawn Gudmundson, welcomed the congressman. Council Member Tony Frazier was absent from the meeting.

Several residents made their way to the podium to thank the congressman for his letter asking the federal government to review the Cadiz project. Several concerns regarding the project were also discussed.

The Cadiz water project, called the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project, plans to deliver up to 50,000 acre-feet annually for 50 years. The following 50 years would be used to help recharge and focus on storage. Santa Margarita Water District approved the project last summer after a nearly 18-month environmental review. There was a public comment portion that had been extended to allow additional feedback.

Comments from residents focused on the various concerns they have about the project and possible impact it could have on the desert environment. Comments ranged in concern from how the federal government should review the project due to lack of appropriate process to depleting an already arid environment.

Rob Blair, local rancher, said his ranch has been in his family for generations. He’s concerned the project will deplete already limited water in the desert, which in turn would impact his ranch because he and his family depend on springs and wells for the livestock.

He said when in a drought, the springs start to dry up and that means selling the cattle, moving them somewhere else or spending money to pipe water.

In the proposal, Cadiz claims to be monitoring Domingo Springs, Blair said. That spring belongs to Blair and he knows there isn’t monitoring happening, he continued.

Seth Shteir, of the National Parks Conservation Association, also spoke on the Cadiz project. He referred to the phrase “no free lunch.”

Shteir said it defies credibility that Cadiz claims to want to pump 50,000 acre-feet of water annually for 50 years and that there will be no environmental impact. “We simply know better than that,” he added.

Cadiz has one set of assertions regarding the water resources in the Mojave and the association and other groups have different assertions, Shteir said. This should indicate a need for further review.

The actual impact of the project on habitat, wildlife and others who depend on the water is unknown, he said. Impact needs to be known before the project can happen.

While the visit focused on the Cadiz project, Cook did talk about other topics. He thanked all for the hospitality shown and for welcoming him.

He said the only part of the introduction he didn’t like was being called a politician. He thinks of himself as a states-person, he added.

Cook said the 8th Congressional District is a huge district and it’s difficult to get around but he appreciates getting invites and planning to visit nearby areas to avoid wasting time.

“I’m your representative,” Cook said. “It’s not about Washington.”

He said local issues are important to him and that’s part of why he raised concerns on the Cadiz project.

“I just don’t feel right about it,” he said, continuing that he’s not comfortable with taking water from his district and shipping it elsewhere.

“My first allegiance is to you guys,” Cook said to applause. “That’s the way I approach the job.”

Local issues are also why he’s spoken out about an off road area that the U.S. Marine Corps wants to expand into for training purposes. He said he has his concerns with that expansion in terms of safety.

Cook talked about how veteran affairs are important to him. “I’m not afraid to rock the boat,” he said.

He said he’s a Republican, but it doesn’t matter. It’s his job to represent everyone regardless of political persuasion.

Cook touched on the topic of economics for the city. He told the Needles Desert Star in an interview after the meeting dealing with the unique economic situation Needles faces is difficult.

He said he’s not sure how to change or help the city at the moment, though he wants to help. Residents and city staff know the city’s history best and are best equipped to develop ideas for how to help itself, he said.

Because of Needles’ small size, to get those changes made, he recommended making allies and making the city’s voice bigger so it will be heard, he said.

That type of work is how legislation is written and how changes are made to help cities, he continued; offering his services as a conduit to move ideas through the process and into law.