A California company wants to pump water from an ancient aquifer in the Mojave desert. Experts warn that draining the aquifer would irreversibly harm the desert’s fragile ecosystem, and at least one politician is listening.
The Cadiz project claims that pumping from the groundwater basin would not affect any springs in the Mojave Preserve. But no one seriously believes that enough water drains into the desert to replenish an ecosystem that gets an annual four to 10 inches of rainfall.