The battle over plans by a Los Angeles company to sell water pumped from aquifers underneath Mojave Desert conservation areas heated up again this week when state legislation was amended to require a new round of state reviews.
The legislation’s new language, by Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, D-Glendale, would stop major pumping until state land and wildlife officials determined that groundwater extractions would not harm wildlife or cultural resources.
The legislation is in response to the Cadiz desert water project that has been prioritized by the Trump administration.
Cadiz officials called the legislation a flawed attempt to further delay the project.
Cadiz wants to pump groundwater from wells on land its owns in the Cadiz Valley that is surrounded by the Mojave Trails National Monument. These wells would draw water from connected aquifers below the Cadiz, Bristol and Fenner valleys that supply springs within the monuments as well as the Mojave National Preserve.
The water would be piped more than 40 miles across federal lands along a railroad right of way to the Colorado River Aqueduct. It would then be ferried to water customers in suburban Southern California.
The project has been staunchly opposed by environmental groups and other desert advocates, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who sponsored the California Desert Protection Act of 1994 that created the Mojave National Preserve and protected 69 wilderness areas between the Mexican border and the town of Bishop.
If it passes the Legislature and is signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, the new state law also would be called the California Desert Protection Act.
Contacted by cell phone, Friedman, a first-year legislator, said her aim is to conserve the water below the desert conservation areas that wildlife depends upon.
“This is the water that supports the desert’s ecosystem, and it is vitally important,” she said.
The law would prohibit taking groundwater from a large swath of the Mojave unless the State Lands Commission, working with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, finds that pumping “will not adversely affect the natural or cultural resources of those federal and state lands,” the bill says.
Friedman said the Cadiz project could go forward under the law if the new state reviews find it does no harm.
As excerpted from The Press-Enterprise