Cadiz now a “conservation project”
Posted on | September 14, 2009 | 4 Comments
Map from the USGS Mojave Desert Ecosystem Program. Click on the image to be taken to the site.
Cadiz marked in red
To hear Scott Slater, General Counsel of Cadiz Inc, Emily Green of Chance of Rain, Elden Hughes of the Sierra Club and Richard Sierra of the San Bernardino Union of Carriers, Building & Construction Laborers, Local 783 discuss the Cadiz groundwater project in the Mojave Desert on today’s KPCC AirTalk, click here. Slater claims that harvesting groundwater from the desert is now a “conservation” project. Green and Hughes don’t buy it. Sierra wants jobs.
UPDATE: 9/17/2009 — In Monday’s live interview with KPCC’s Larry Mantle, Scott Slater, general counsel for Cadiz Inc, said that Cadiz’s new groundwater project for the Mojave is viable in part because of new information. “I think that there’s been a lot of information developed by a lot of parties, including the USGS itself, including most specificially a new Desert Watershed Management Model that is available today that didn’t exist the last time that yield for the project was evaluated,” he said.
On checking US Geological Survey records, it appears that while the survey does periodically come out with new models for new applications, there are no new tools or data that contradict the yield estimates from the 2001 Department of Interior figures.
Re: Mr Slater’s further contention that Cadiz has an “audit arrangement” with the Natural Heritage Institute under which Cadiz will “make a commitment to them that we would operate the property within the longterm sustainable yield in accordance with good science,” click here for background on Cadiz’s record with the Environmental Impact Report of 2001, and the NHI’s answers as to the nature of its compact with Cadiz.
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4 Responses to “Cadiz now a “conservation project””
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North American Native Plant Societies
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September 14th, 2009 @ 3:56 pm
Last I heard, “conservation” does not include GW mining. Pity the poor PR hack who has to spin that one!
September 15th, 2009 @ 7:52 am
[…] we finally have to fight the water wars? Can we grow lettuce on the roof? Long term, is this what Cadiz is really heading […]
September 25th, 2009 @ 11:55 am
[…] story, and if this touches you, get involved. Emily Green at the Chance of Rain blog has done excellent research and is keenly following this story, and LA Observed and the LA Times is also staying on top of the political relationships. With a […]
February 8th, 2010 @ 11:43 am
[…] apply. Everything about the project is supposedly new, he told Larry Mantle on KPCC’s “Air Talk” last September. It’s now a “conservation” project, he […]