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Peter H. Gleick

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Mining Groundwater for Profit: The Cadiz Project

Posted: 01/24/2012 1:36 pm

A private company, Cadiz Inc. (Cadiz), has revived plans to mine groundwater underlying land in the delicate Eastern Mojave Desert. This project raises fundamental questions about how we manage our precious water resources, and in particular, whether in the 21st century it is appropriate, or even necessary, to use renewable water resources in a nonrenewable and unsustainable way, for short-term profit.

The idea for the Cadiz project is simple: mine groundwater faster than nature refills it and sell it to urban centers in Southern California for profit. The full proposal seems more complicated -- the owners might try to temporarily replace the lost groundwater with extra water from the Colorado River, if it is ever available (which is highly unlikely), but they propose to pump out this water and sell it, too, so the economics of the project really just depend on the water removed through unsustainable groundwater mining. Without that water, the project fails economically.

The project is located in the desert of southern California, east of Los Angeles and San Diego, in an area with very low precipitation. The owners intend to remove at least 50,000 acre-feet of water a year (and if they can get away with it, 75,000 acre-feet per year in the early years) for 50 years and sell it to local water agencies, including the Santa Margarita Water Agency (SMWA), Three Valleys Municipal Water District, Suburban Water System, Golden State Water Company, Jurupa Community Services, and California Water Service Company. Scientists estimate that nature, in contrast, only refills the basin with around 5,000 and 32,000 acre-feet per year, with most independent estimates at the very low end. This means the groundwater levels will drop and drop, like taking more water out of a bathtub than you put in. This is, simply, unsustainable.

If there were no adverse consequences of this kind of water mining, and if all that mattered was money, then perhaps using up this stock of water and turning it into a private good would make sense -- at least to the project owners. But there are adverse consequences for other humans and for the local environment. This is cut-and-run water management: take a non-renewable resource that will last a short time, turn it for a profit, and leave a degraded landscape, mimicking the classic boom-and-bust cycles that characterized much of the mining industry in the western U.S. in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Here are some of the other consequences:

  • The water supply is unsustainable -- it is not a permanent source of water and new sources would have to be found when it is no longer economical to pump.
  • The project produces water that is already more expensive than saving the same amount of water through improving urban conservation and efficiency programs.
  • Other local landowners and businesses believe their water availability or quality will be affected by the project in ways neither fully understood nor mitigated by Cadiz.
  • There are unresolved questions about the quality of the water and how the project might worsen water quality for other users over time.
  • And perhaps most important, water in the desert is a rare thing, and the desert pools, ephemeral seeps, natural springs, and playas support delicate ecosystems dependent on the ability of groundwater to reach the surface. This project would draw down that groundwater, leading to the inevitable disappearance of surface water with highly uncertain, poorly understood, but almost certainly negative ecological consequences. And even the project owners admit in their draft Environmental Impact Report (dEIR) that we don't know enough about the science to fully understand the consequence for centuries to come -- long after they've left the scene.
In a mathematical sleight of hand, the project argues that water is "saved" by the project because it might reduce evaporative losses when water ponds on the surface during some wet periods. Yet it is precisely this water that local ecosystems rely upon for survival. Another piece of mathematical magic is their claim that the project is actually sustainable because they assume the project life is 100 years long: thus they pump like mad for the first 50 years and take their money and leave, acknowledging that the groundwater might or might not recharge to its original levels over the next 50 years after pumping stops. That's like saying that fossil fuels are renewable, because nature might make them again in the future. Under the lower (and perhaps more accurate) estimates of natural recharge, there is a real risk of permanent damage to the groundwater basin through subsidence of land or contamination of the aquifer with salts, and it may never fully refill. And the draft environmental impact report says nothing at all about how the real risk of climate change might alter the desert hydrology.

Finally, there are natural springs in nearby valleys that may be connected to the groundwater basin in Cadiz. In a remarkable grammatical sleight-of-hand, the draft environmental impact report states that a field survey done by their consultants concluded that "there is no information demonstrating a physical connection of the identified springs in the local mountains to [Cadiz] groundwater." Note the wording: "there is no information." They use that to discount any risks to local springs. But absence of evidence is not the same thing as evidence of absence.

An honest assessment of the science would conclude that, at best, we don't know if there is a connection. And in fact the hydrologic assessment does show that if there is any connection, the mining of groundwater would ultimately affect the springs, perhaps long after pumping began. This means that if there is a connection, once it is ultimately noticed, it would be too late to prevent the springs from drying up.

We need new thinking about water in California and new innovative solutions. We must modify how we use water, and we must find new sources of supply. But the Cadiz Project is old thinking, based on the pillage-and-run philosophy of the past centuries, where water was seen as a resource to be mined and consumed, not managed in a sustainable way. This project is an insult to the notion of sustainability, to the efforts to protect the Eastern Mojave's beauty and unique nature, and to the idea that resource development should respect more than just narrow economic gain. The good news is there are excellent alternatives, including recycling and reuse of water, improved efficiency of use by our cities and farms, smarter and renewable groundwater use and recharge projects, and even desalination of brackish waters or the ocean if the economics and environmental challenges can be properly overcome. Cadiz might have made some sense a century ago when we didn't know better, but today it is neither appropriate for California nor necessary, and it should be cancelled.

Dr. Peter Gleick, Pacific Institute

[A public comment hearing on Cadiz will be held tonight, Tuesday, January 24 at 6:00 p.m. at SMWD, 26111 Antonio Parkway, Rancho Santa Margarita. Another will be held Wednesday, February 1 at 6:00 p.m. at the Joshua Tree Community Center.]

 
 
 

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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
NJP1
02:07 PM on 01/25/2012
To quote Steven Chu, Nobel Prizewinner and secretary of state for energy to the Obama adminstration (2/09):, “we’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California., and I do not see how cities there can exist beyond 2100
So the Cadiz water project will eventually go ahead. People demand water, they demand an affluent lifestyle, they demand that it is delivered cheaply and in abundance even in deserts.
Why?
Because they’ve got used to having it, and they have the means to get it. And that sums up the ongoing problem. We have used cheap energy to organize our lives so that abundant water, light, heating, cooling, transport, all come at the flick of a switch. Cheap energy expanded population exponentially so that demands on water are unsustainable, but people like desert climates, so people want water delivered to them, even if that means sucking the country dry long term.
People aren’t interested in long term, their lives are here and now, as is thirst. Conservation is acknowledged, as long as it affects other people; that means cities built in deserts will hold out until there is literally no more water available to sustain then, and no means to get it there. So the drive for expansion of every resource will go on as long as there is the means to pay for it Southern California will buy water from any source to postpone the inevitable.

http://www.yourmedievalfuture.com/
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11:39 PM on 01/24/2012
The Carlyle Group recently purchased our local water system for a town of about 60,000. We sit on top of a great aquifer fed by the Blackfoot, Clark Fork, and Bitterroot Rivers. The previous owner was from CA and wouldn't even talk to the city when he decided to sell. Our water system has always been privately owned, only town or city in MT that way. The water needs very little treatment yet we've always had some of the highest rates in the state. Thankfully, our Public Service Commission has some say in how they operate, and supposedly they cannot sell the water outside of Missoula, MT. We'll see.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
mhh310351
Roosevelt Democrat
10:38 PM on 01/24/2012
With all this panic about water why don't we build a nuclear power plant on a ship and distill water from the ocean. We get power, we get water, we can get precious metals, we can get rare earth metals, and we can get lithium to power our electric cars.

Zero CO2 emissions closed system.

And if their ever was a problem instead of trying to evacuate 5 or 10 million people you just move the ship.

Make a few extra so that when a cyclone or tsunami hits they can go there and bring aid.

At the end of their service life encase them in ceramics and sink them onto the sub-ducting tectonic plate opposite the side of the trench where undersea volcanoes form. That we we recycle the nuclear material back to the mantel where it came from in the first place.

A complete recycling closed system.
Genders
Love, Tolerance, Enlightenment
09:14 PM on 01/24/2012
Read all about it: company to buy the world's air and sell it for a profit.....
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
NJP1
07:10 AM on 01/25/2012
you're ahead of me
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blackwind
Relax, nothing is under control
02:10 AM on 01/26/2012
When they perfect the nostril-meter, you'll start getting bills.
Genders
Love, Tolerance, Enlightenment
05:57 PM on 01/24/2012
Sounds like the proponents of the project never bothered to learn what happened to the Pacific sardine industry. Maybe they are descended from those folks that made a nice profit selling pickled bison tongues!
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Bubblessharky
Where sanity dares to tread
05:34 PM on 01/24/2012
The behaviour of many in our society is sickening, especially so those who are only interested in their perception of value. Society needs to consider the overall value of things rather than the narrow viewpoint that is economic.
HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
JScott
John Galt's last name is McGuffin-Smithee
05:18 PM on 01/24/2012
I thought this project was abandoned a few years back. But it's a STUPID project.
When the buyers of the water get it then allow more urban sprawl, they don't think about what happens after 50 years, just hopin for some kinda miracle. I dunno what they we're thinking but it's clouded by $ signs dancing in their brains. I've driven by the project and there's only a few jojoba, citrus and date farms that might draw some water but this project would not be good. Dunno why it got this far-IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE!
04:09 PM on 01/24/2012
The economics seem pretty simple: Pay the cost of pumping (call it $100/af), sell it to MET for $300/af, spend $50/af to pay off the pipeline and party with the other $150/af. Oh, and IGNORE the cost to your neighbors or the environment. They don't count.

In other words, it's not economically OR environmentally sustainable....
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Gottlieb
hated by left since 1973 and right since 1982
09:59 AM on 01/25/2012
The project sounds like a perfect fit for the business model of the job creators. Private profit and public risk.
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HUFFPOST BLOGGER
Peter H. Gleick
Hydroclimatologist, President, Pacific Institute
08:11 PM on 01/25/2012
Nicely and succinctly put.