From the Huffington Post, Cadiz, Inc., planned to build a 43 mile pipeline through Mojave Trails National Monument in southern California and recover ground water out of the desert aquifer and sell to cities. Its plan was to pump approximately 16 billion gallons a year from the fragile desert ecosystem.
The Obama administration had previously rejected Cadiz's assertion it had a right to build the project and the federal bureau of land management ruled in 2015 the pipeline project would require an environmental review. Obama's order for an environmental review was reversed by the Trump administration following the appointment of David Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for Cadiz, who was deputy interior secretary.
U.S. District Judge George Wu ruled an environmental review exemption by the Trump administration was illegal for a pipeline to extract water from the Mojave desert. Several environmental groups sued Trump's order that took the issue to the courts. Lisa Belenky, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the environmental groups that sued to halt the project said, the court decision will stop the Trump administration's blatant attempt to do a favor for their corporate friends.
And to top it off, a study by the U.S. Geological Survey in 2017 determined that the project would be catastrophic for the desert. Based on the independent study, it is clear that Cadiz would quickly drain the aquifer, destroying all of the desert life it supports which Senator Dianne Feinstein acknowledged. So the madness of crooked Trump is once again recognized by a federal court, and puts a stop in a project that lacks any regard for environmental safety of earth's ecosystem. Cadiz only concern was profit and Trump, as President, was willing to turn his back. What a shame.
