Utility expresses interest in Cadiz water project

From Riverside’s Press Enterprise:

Western Municipal Water District in Riverside is among five Southern California suppliers that have expressed interest in a controversial proposal to store and draw water from ancient aquifers in the Mojave Desert, officials confirmed Thursday.

The $200 million project in the Cadiz Valley, about 40 miles east of Twentynine Palms, would involve burying 44 miles of pipeline to move surplus Colorado River water to an underground basin the size of Rhode Island.

The water rights under 35,000 acres belong to Cadiz Inc., which also wants to tap water from beneath nearby dry lake beds that it says would otherwise be lost to evaporation.

The Los Angeles-based company announced last month that five water providers signed letters of intent to evaluate the project and share the costs of an environmental review, with options to buy the water. Cadiz Inc. identified Golden State Water Co. in San Dimas, a private company serving desert communities in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, as one of the interested parties.

The project was once under consideration by Metropolitan Water District; however, problems soon emerged, according to journalist/blogger Emily Green from the Chance of Rain blog:

Colorado River water is loaded with salt that it picks up as it courses out of the Colorado Rockies. Infusing salty water into the pure groundwater could have devastating consequences on desert flora and fauna.

Meanwhile, USGS studies had been showing that the Mojave aquifer is widely laced with Chromium VI, the carcinogen that might have strong native levels in the Mojave but was certainly introduced in quantity into the desert’s aquifers by PG&E gas compressor plants, including the one made famous by Erin Brockovich.

Ignoring water quality issues for a moment, quantity of water was also a challenge. In 2002, the Colorado River entered what the US Bureau of Reclamation river masters now call the worst drought of the last 100 years. There was no extra river water to bank in Cadiz’s private aquifer.

This left the option of pumping Mojave ground water out from under Cadiz land and selling it to Metropolitan and its agencies. Except that so little water flows into the Mojave through rain and snowmelt every year, this option would mean swift collapse of delicate desert ecosystems.

However, things have changed, says a Cadiz spokesperson in the Press-Enterprise article:

Scott Slater, general counsel for Cadiz Inc., said the plan has been reformulated to address environmental concerns. The company has partnered with the Natural Heritage Institute to ensure the project’s sustainability, will allow solar development on up to 20,000 acres and is open to dedicating land for open space.

The project isn’t limited to Colorado River water, he said. Water could be added to the pipeline system through exchanges with other sources and stored there. It also would capture tens of thousands of acre-feet of water that is now lost to evaporation, Slater said.

More from Riverside’s Press-Enterprise by clicking here. Read more from Emily Green and the Chance of Rain blog by clicking here.

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