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Cadiz Responds to “Alarming” BLM Determination

If you’ve read recent news coverage of the Bureau of Land Management’s Oct. 2 determination regarding the preferred route of the Cadiz water pipeline to the Colorado River Aqueduct, you may think the water project is dead in the water.

That’s not true. The decision is NOT final and Cadiz has multiple efforts  underway that should result in the project staying on schedule. The best source of information on this matter is Cadiz CEO Scott Slater. Here’s what he said recently:

Over the past week, our efforts to bring a new, sustainable supply of water to Southern California have suffered from disappointing and alarming behavior from the United States Government and a slumbering media critic.  If you believe the media reports, you would think the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Storage and Recovery Project is dead in the water. It is not. We continue to work determinedly towards project completion in 2017.

The alarming federal behavior came from the Bureau of Land Management, a part of the Department of Interior. BLM is required to determine whether our proposal to place the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project’s pipeline in a railroad right-of-way meets various requirements governing federal land leases to railroads.  The criteria for the review, set forth by Interior’s Solicitor, is that the use “derives from or furthers” railroad purposes.

On his very last day before retiring, James Kenna, the Regional Director of BLM, finally signed the directive after months of delay. We were shocked to see that BLM’s determination is absolutely irreconcilable with the Solicitor’s opinion because it dismisses the many ways our proposal furthers railroad purposes.  Mr. Kenna didn’t stick around for questioning by Cadiz or anyone else.

Much has been written by journalists that the BLM determination is not appealable, but the only reason it is not appealable is that it is not final – it is subject to reinterpretation based on new information (or the correct application of existing information). While we are working to have the determination overturned, we also are pursuing federal litigation to overturn it. Only the federal courts, not BLM, have the authority to determine property rights, and our lawyers are confident that the actions they now are working on will result in a federal court decision in our favor.  That decision will be binding on the BLM, the Department of Interior, the world, and even Senator Feinstein, who continues to fight the project at every turn, even though our careful, environmentally sensitive design answers all her criticisms.

You may have read that federal environmental review the BLM’s determination would trigger – if it stands – would be “essentially a death knell” for the Project. These reports intentionally mislead the public.  In 2002, BLM approved a larger and more impactful Project design under exactly the kind of federal review that would be triggered now.

Of course, Senator Feinstein knows this, so while she says publicly that a federal review is needed, behind the scenes she continues to push to  have a rider added to the Department of Interior Appropriations Bill that would cut the funds needed to carry out the review she says she thinks is so necessary. While the Senator professes to be working hard to help Californians recover from the drought, her rider language cuts funding for just one project – Cadiz, and the water it would bring to drought-ravaged Southern California.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Michael Hiltzik, an LA Times opinion writer who was previously suspended for fabricating internet identities (lying), saw an opportunity to dredge up old news and disproven claims and once again attack Cadiz. It’s been several years since Hilzik has directed his drivel at Cadiz, and during this absence, apparently he missed the worst California drought in a century and the  system shortages, water rationing, expansive water conservation, and corresponding investments in new water supply projects it has brought.

It wasn’t politics or connections that established the quantities of groundwater in aquifers beneath the Fenner Valley.  Science, not influence, measured the evaporation from dry lakes around the Project area and found that the aquifer’s total output currently is wasted to evaporation.  Methodical investigation, study and analysis, not favoritism, concluded that impacts feared by some are scientifically impossible.

Our public sector partner, the Santa Margarita Water District, kept its fiduciary duty to the public by adopting a Final Environmental Impact Report that was thorough and fairly discharged, finding that Project operations would not cause a single adverse impact to plants, animals, springs, the aquifer, or the desert ecosystem.  The County of San Bernardino honored its duty to its citizens by holding public hearings on the Project, weighing the science and fairly balancing its duty to authorize the beneficial use of the waters of the State and protecting the Fenner Valley aquifer from harm.

These decisions, which resulted in the approval of a new water supply sufficient water to meet the needs of 400,000 people a year for 50 years, were confirmed by a California Superior Court Judge who dismissed all six cases brought against the Project and sustained every aspect of the government approvals.

The road we’ve traveled has been long and every bit as difficult and complex as we knew it would be when we started. The Cadiz project is all the better for these challenges, and we are continuing to push for project completion in 2017, using all the resources at our disposal.

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