Lawmakers should safeguard Mojave water and environment

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OPINION – If you’re a company trying to sell water in the American Southwest, you know it’s been a bad year when it starts with the California State Controller calling your project a risk to taxpayers and ends with an Arizona agency refusing to fund your project. And that’s exactly what happened to Cadiz, Inc., a Los Angeles based corporation that for 30 years has been targeting a Mojave Desert aquifer for pumping and profit.

But despite repeated failures to secure permits and funding, the company continues to threaten desert parks and monuments with its project. I know this threat well, having spent my entire career in the National Park Service and over a decade of that protecting our desert.

If the Cadiz corporation and their big international investors have their way, 50,000 acre-feet (16 billion gallons) of groundwater would be pumped each year and exported for sale, desecrating our public lands in the process. The problem is easy to understand and alarming: the groundwater aquifer only refills with around 2,000 acre-feet of water a year, meaning the company would pump out 25 times more water than is replenished – each year for 50 years.

That spells big trouble for the Mojave Trails National Monument, California’s largest national monument that celebrates its 10^th anniversary today. Advocated for by millions of Americans and established by President Barack Obama, Mojave Trails is a crown jewel protecting mountain ranges and canyons, wildlife migration corridors and rare plants, and perhaps most important, springs that provide life-sustaining water to this ecosystem – water that Cadiz seeks access to.

Numerous springs in Mojave Trails are fed by ice-age groundwater that is more than 10,000 years old. Because the water source is ancient groundwater and not recent precipitation, it means these springs provide reliable water year-round, regardless of drought conditions that can render other springs dry. Benefitting from this unique resource are the majestic desert bighorn sheep, mountain lions, kit foxes, and migrating birds. For Native Americans, these springs are held sacred.

The pillaging of this fragile aquifer also spells big trouble for communities who seek reliable water supplies. The overpumping means that communities who are promised water from Cadiz risk turning on the taps and no water flowing out.

These problems, along with the company posting an average annual loss of $23 million over the past 20 years, should have ended this project years ago. So how does Cadiz get out of this mess and overcome the laws that protect Mojave Trails’ water?

Cadiz’s best chance is to continue an approach it knows well, yet loathed by Californians: building an influence pipeline through campaign donations and Trump-insider lobbyists. Disclosures show this effort is well underway.

Lobbying records reveal that an obscure company created by Cadiz (called “Fenner Gap Mutual Water Company”) recently hired the Washington D.C. lobbying firm run by David Bernhardt, Trump’s Secretary of Interior in his first administration and who is currently on the Board of Directors of Truth Social Trump Media. Unsurprisingly, Trump’s administration then rewarded Cadiz with an endorsement of its project, renamed the “Mojave Groundwater Bank,” and is currently working to permit Cadiz to pipe out the Mojave Trails water.

The pathway to defend Mojave Trails is both time-tested and wildly popular amongst Californians: fight back against the Trump administration and resist Cadiz’s politically toxic influence playbook.

On this 10^th anniversary of the state’s largest national monument, California officials should follow the lead of Governor Gavin Newsom, who announced his opposition to Cadiz and its influence playbook in 2018 on the campaign trail, stating “I don’t support it…I’m worried about what it means to the Mojave Desert. I’m worried about what it means for the environment. I don’t like people buying influence. I don’t like money determining the fate of even good ideas, let alone bad ideas.”

Healthy companies don’t lose hundreds of millions of dollars over decades. They don’t target parks and precious Tribal lands for plunder.

In contrast, healthy nations preserve their exquisite sites of natural splendor. They protect unique and awe-inspiring wildlife from extinction.

Together, all Californians can tell our lawmakers, state and federal, to stop Cadiz and safeguard desert water and environment from destruction. This simple act of speaking up is one good way to stop corporate influence-peddling at its worst.

Speaking up is one great way to celebrate this 10th anniversary of Mojave Trails National Monument, an irreplaceable asset whose existence and rugged beauty are a testament to America at its best.

Mary Martin is the retired Superintendent of the Mojave National Preserve and Lassen Volcanic National Park.