At least two lawsuits have been filed by conservations groups against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and other parts of the Biden administration over a private-public plan to provide water to almost half a billion people in southern California.
The litigation came as no surprise to the company at the center of it, Cadiz, Inc., which describes itself as "a California business dedicated to sustainable water and agricultural projects."
"While we will not comment on the pending litigation to which we are not a named party, we are deeply saddened but not surprised by the latest attempts by opponents of new water supply to delay and obstruct federal permits that could augment California’s water supply infrastructure, especially as the state is staring down another drought and continues to have more than 1 million people without reliable access to clean water," Cadiz said in a news release issued March 23.
View into the Mojave Desert and the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project
| twitter.com/Cadiz_Inc/
Cadiz maintained the environmental groups behind the litigation are repeating claims from six cases in which Cadiz was named and prevailed, all in an attempt to delay the project.
"They also routinely oppose virtually every water supply and infrastructure project in California," the news release said. "These opponents callously disregard the needs of communities benefitted by improved access to clean, reliable water supplies in their relentless efforts to deny economic opportunity, fair housing, and affordable water to all Californians. Rather than openly oppose affordable housing, they hide behind pretextual environmental claims."
The need for new water sources is universally understood but plaintiffs are lying about the Cadiz water project and they should be ashamed, according to the news release.
"Members of the organizations funding these lawsuits and spreading the misinformation about the pipeline’s use should be ashamed of the frivolous spending of their dues to fund attacks on water access in California," the news release said.
While Cadiz is not listed among defendants in the lawsuits, the right of way it got from BLM to move billions of gallons of water through a disused oil-and-gas pipeline across Mojave Trails National Monument and elsewhere in southeastern California is at the center of at least one of those lawsuits. Cadiz's plans are for its Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project, known in short as the "Cadiz Water Project."
In its lawsuit, the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club are suing BLM and other federal and state agencies over the right of way and the Cadiz Water Project, claiming the Trump administration violated federal laws by not first conducting an environmental analysis.
"The Trump administration did one last favor to Cadiz by granting this right-of-way without any public review," Center for Biological Diversity Biologist Ileene Anderson said in the organization's news release issued the same day as the lawsuit. "This massive water-privatization scheme would dry up life-giving desert springs and seeps that some of California’s rarest desert species rely on. It’s reckless and illegal, and it needs to be stopped."
The Cadiz Water Project would amount to "a groundwater-mining scheme" to drain ancient aquifers beneath the Mojave Desert to provide water for new developments in Southern California, the Center for Biological Diversity said in its news release.
Cadiz has countered that its award-winning water project will provide a reliable water supply to communities and, along the way, create jobs and economic opportunities. The Cadiz Water Project, a public-private partnership with Southern California water agencies, will provide a new water supply for up to 400,000 people a year by reducing groundwater evaporation in the Mojave Desert, Cadiz said in a news release in October.
"Through our judicially validated public-private partnership and with support from labor and the disadvantaged communities we plan to serve, we believe we can help," Cadiz CEO Scott Slater said in another news release issued in October.
Cadiz maintains on its website links to six California Appeals Court rulings that "upholds Cadiz Water Project's Environmental approvals."
Also in March, Slater issued a call to action over California's long-time water supply crisis made worse by the current drought.
"Today, most Californians find themselves staring down another drought declaration," Slater said in his March 23 statement. "This is exacerbated by the reality that more than 1 million Californians are without reliable access to clean, affordable water. Climate change is telling us limits on traditional supplies can and will continue and we must be innovative in our work to move water between communities that need it and to ensure it can happen safely and successfully in any hydrological year."