The Trump administration on Thursday approved a key permit for a controversial project to pump groundwater out of the Mojave Desert in Southern California.
What happened: The Bureau of Land Management published its approval of a 50-year right of way allowing the Fenner Gap Mutual Water Co., an entity created by the firm Cadiz Inc., to convert an existing 220-mile natural gas pipeline into a water pipeline where it crosses federal lands.
The decision also authorizes the construction of seven pumping stations and related facilities.
The buried steel pipeline would carry groundwater from Cadiz’s proposed Mojave Groundwater Bank in San Bernardino County. Cadiz says the pipeline could initially deliver up to 25,000 acre-feet of water a year to communities and water agencies in California’s High Desert and Inland Empire, with the potential to carry more as the project develops.
