Don’t Drain Our Desert Water

At the center of Mojave Trails National Monument, between Mojave National Preserve and Joshua Tree National Park, a private company is pushing a groundwater mining project that would have disastrous impacts on the national park landscapes, wildlife and local communities.

The stakes are high. Cadiz Inc., a private company, has spent decades attempting to build a pipeline that would remove enormous quantities of groundwater from the California desert to export and sell for profit.

A dangerous water grab threatening parks, wildlife, and communities

The project has been mired in controversy for skirting environmental reviews and ignoring the scientific evidence of the harm it would cause.

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Federal scientists have found that the project would extract 25 times more groundwater than nature can replace. This unsustainable pumping would dry up desert springs that bighorn sheep, desert tortoises, kit foxes and other rare desert wildlife rely on. Communities sold this water would be left with an unreliable and unsustainable supply.

• The National Park Service and California Department of Fish and Wildlife have expressed serious concerns about how this project could harm desert springs.

• The United States Geological Survey determined that the recharge rate for the aquifer was dramatically lower than what Cadiz has estimated, meaning that the waters cannot naturally replenish themselves as quickly as the company has claimed they would.

• Concerns have been consistently raised by state and federal officials, and state legilsation was passed in 2019 to help block this project.

Remote springs supported by this aquifer are sacred to Tribes and have been protected for generations. Protecting springs in the desert is about cultural survival and the Cadiz project is opposed by numerous California desert Tribes and the National Congress of American Indians.

The multi-generational fight to stop Cadiz

NPCA and our supporters have fought the Cadiz project for decades, holding the line against this harmful project.

With a growing push to allow rushed and reckless development near park landscapes, it’s more important than ever to protect our shared natural resources.

NPCA continues to work with a broad coalition of Tribes, local communities, scientists, and advocates to keep this precious water where it belongs—in the desert, where wildlife and national park ecosystems rely on it.