Latino representation too important to be forsaken for company profits

OPINION – It was a letter I never thought I would have to write. But given deceptive tactics by a group called Groundswell, funded by discredited water company Cadiz, to wrongly use my name and image in their lobbying strategy, my duty to speak out was clear.

In January, I sent a letter to California lawmakers pushing back on both these entities for misusing my likeness to enable their mission to prey on desert groundwater. I denounced Groundswell as a “corporate front group” and its sponsor Cadiz as “environmentally harmful” and promoting policies that are “destructive.”

If anything, I went easy on them. Even clearer now is how I am not alone. Cadiz has other Latina and Latino leaders in California in its crosshairs to advance their scheme of profiteering from degradation of the desert. It is aiming to use communities of color as pawns in its program to secure permits for pumping out an aquifer in the Mojave Desert that brings life to natural springs, Tribal communities, and wildlife but which, sadly, signifies just dollar signs for them.

Don’t take my word for it. The CEO of Cadiz, Susan Kennedy, adviser to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, spelled it out in the L.A. Times in January, just days after my letter warning state lawmakers about Cadiz. After conceding that “the Cadiz name is a poison pill,” she admitted her goal is to “change the company so people think about it differently.”

Kennedy outlined that different look she intends for Cadiz: as a friend of environmental justice. Central to that makeover is partnering with water agencies in San Bernardino County and using them and their image to secure permits for Cadiz to drain the desert aquifers.

What she doesn’t say is the entire Cadiz scheme defines the term speculative. While the corporation claims it can pump 50,000 acre-feet of water annually without causing environmental damage, independent government research concludes groundwater will deplete if more than 2,000 acre-feet per year is pumped.

Pumping beyond that level can dry up springs and harm wildlife including bighorn sheep that depend on water. It would impose harm on Tribal nations that have stewarded this sacred landscape for centuries. For communities that Cadiz wants to sell water to, the project would be costly and unreliable and could shut down prematurely due to ensuing damage.

Stained by implausibility and denial of federal and state permits, Cadiz is now latching onto disadvantaged communities to help it gain traction and grab windfall profits.

This predatory quality explains in part the strategy to wrap Cadiz in a blanket of moral absolution that political support from Latina and Latino political leaders might appear to confer. Recently Kennedy added to the Cadiz board retired state senator Richard Polanco, former chair of the Latino Legislative Caucus.

In December, Kennedy and Polanco cohosted a fundraiser in Pasadena for the federal political action committee (PAC) of Sen. Alex Padilla, drawing in key promoters of Groundswell and Cadiz.

The December fundraiser, according to attendees, did not address Cadiz or its corporate makeover. But it did raise thousands of dollars for Sen. Padilla’s PAC from Cadiz board members and its supporters, endearing the corporate leaders of Cadiz with the first California’s first Latino U.S. Senator.

Targeting Sen. Padilla with a Cadiz-heavy event may not be coincidental. Just three months before the fund-raiser, on Aug. 28, Sen. Padilla co-signed a letter alongside then-colleague Dianne Feinstein expressing serious concerns about Cadiz and appreciation that permits illegally issued to Cadiz by the Trump Administration were terminated. It was a hopeful sign for Padilla’s emergence as a safeguard for the desert and against Cadiz.

Sen. Padilla isn’t the only target in Cadiz’s influence strategy. In 2023, Cadiz ponied up the maximum allowable contribution to re-elect new Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, who succeeded a strong critic of Cadiz, Speaker Emeritus Anthony Rendon.

All five members of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, including Democrat Joe Baca Jr., have accepted multiple four-figure campaign contributions from Cadiz.

In 2021 and 2022, the company gave $150,000 to the state Democratic Party.

Latino representation is too important to be forsaken by a company angling to profit its executives while others go thirsty, casualties of corporate predation. The California desert is too precious to be treated as profit center, its glory spoiled beyond repair, with no replacement. The best accountability is prevention. That is why Cadiz must be stopped, now and for good, with its exploitation unmasked for all to behold.

Dolores Huerta is president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation, which advocates for social, economic, and environmental justice and a co-founder of the United Farm Workers.

NOTE: All opinions expressed in this forum are solely those of the author and do not express any view or position held by Capitol Weekly or any member of its staff.