Skip to main content
state library of queensland
Blog
Business and entrepreneurs

The Fight Over Water: When Business and Politics Collide

By Administrator | 15 August 2017

Water, as intrinsic to our lives as the air we breathe, is becoming increasingly rare and valuable. We must stop taking it for granted.

The water situation in California is dire, and some experts predict that the state -- our largest agricultural producer -- is destined to become a desert. As politicians and businesses fight it out in court over aquifer rights, towns are drying up.

The Cadiz Water Project is smack in the middle of the controversy. At the heart of the controversy is a California law that allows landowners to tap into an aquifer their land sits upon, even if the aquifer extends under property belonging to others. A handful of investors have made fortunes by investing in the state's most valuable natural resource.

Cadiz is a private corporation sitting on roughly 70 square miles of property in the Mojave Desert over a deep aquifer. In 2012, the company agreed to sell water to Santa Margarita Water District(SMWD) in Orange County and other local providers. The company proposes to pump enough groundwater from beneath its property to supply 100,000 homes in the heavily drought-impacted Southern California area. California’s eastern Mojave Desert, where the project is located, could see tremendous benefit. Read more

Sherry Gray - Entrepreneur - 12 Aug 2017

Comments

Your email address will not be published.

We welcome relevant, respectful comments.

Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
We also welcome direct feedback via Contact Us.
You may also want to ask our librarians.