I have not been following this particular case too closely but was intrigued when I learned of Emily Green's post Question Time for Cadiz. If it's about groundwater, you can usually count me in.
The graphic is also from Emily's post.
I had not realized that the Natural Heritage Institute recently became involved with the project. I worked with them (President Gregory Thomas) on a binational Rio Grande/Rio Bravo del Norte basin project six or so years ago. A former student of mine works for NHI.
In 1998, the private water speculator Cadiz, Inc. began selling the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California on the idea of a groundwater project in the Mojave Desert. As enthusiasm for it grew, by November 1999, theUS Bureau of Land Management and Metropolitan had produced a draft environmental impact statement as to what they imagined that the Cadiz project would entail, its risks, its benefits and its costs.
For the next two years, hydrologists and geologists from the US National Park Service, the US Geological Survey and San Bernardino County vetted the claims of the draft EIS and returned their comments.
In September 2001, a final Environmental Impact Statement was published. The collective commentary was so withering and the risks revealed by independent scrutiny so overwhelming that in 2002 the Metropolitan board voted to abandon the project.
Internet searches for the massive four-volume review, once posted on-line, now result in a series of dead links.
The print edition resides in all its girth in the public library of Needles, Calif., and a few other desert public offices.
It didn’t matter. The project was dead, right?
No, it's not. Emily continues:
Wrong. Resumption of the project by Cadiz, Inc. last autumn along with a fresh batch of claims that make pumping the Mojave’s groundwater sound positively beneficial for the desert inspired this writer to obtain hard copies of the 2001 Environmental Impact Report. Its contents varied so markedly from the latest round of Cadiz assertions that, at the risk of being a buzz kill, the only rational response was to come back to Cadiz, Inc and its new partner, the Natural Heritage Institute, and comb through their fresh assertions, claim by claim. This is that effort. Copies of the following Cadiz claims and often pointed questions about their accuracy will be going by e-mail to Cadiz, Inc and its partner, the Natural Heritage Institute, at the time of posting. Any and all responses from Cadiz and the NHI, either as comment on line, or privately relayed, will be posted as they come in. I hope she gets some responses. In the meantime, read the rest of her post; it's very well written and researched.
“A project not worth doing is not worth doing well.” -- Unknown
[I posted this on Emily's site too]
Emily -- great job -- keep pushing and asking. Silence is NOT an answer, and "they" are just trying to outwait you (and us!)
You should take a look at this post: http://aguanomics.com/2008/10/endangered-or-radioactive-water.html
and feel free to contact me for more on MET's politics, etc...
Posted by: Account Deleted | Friday, 07 August 2009 at 10:11 AM