Mojave pipeline approved despite warning it will 'drain the desert'

A decades-old plan to move 1.25 million acre-feet of groundwater out of the Mojave Desert has cleared a major federal hurdle after the Trump administration approved a 50-year permit to convert a dormant oil and natural gas pipeline into a water conduit stretching roughly 162 miles across Southern California.

The proposal centers on Cadiz Inc.'s 34,000-acre property near historic Route 66 in eastern San Bernardino County, where the company seeks to export water from the ancient Fenner Basin aquifer. The project has spent decades at the center of legal and political battles, with supporters calling it a new water source for drought-prone communities, and opponents warning it could permanently alter the fragile desert ecosystem.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management limited its environmental review to the pipeline conversion, excluding groundwater pumping and its potential effects on the aquifer, springs and wildlife. The agency said withdrawals would occur on private property under state and local oversight and were outside its regulatory authority.

That distinction lies at the heart of the latest fight over Cadiz: The BLM reviewed the pipeline crossing federal land but not the groundwater pumping needed to supply it, or the wider impacts of that pumping on the Mojave ecosystem.

"This groundwater mining proposal would drain the desert dry and rob the Mojave of its rare springs and wildlife habitat," Chance Wilcox, California desert associate director for the National Parks Conservation Association, said in a statement shared with SFGATE. "It's indefensible that the Trump administration would once again try to revive the pointless Cadiz project, by defying decades of scientific warnings and refusing to conduct an environmental review of the groundwater mining."

The promise of the pipeline

In a landscape defined by dry heat and barren stretches of rock and sand, scattered springs serve as rare desert oases for eastern Mojave Desert wildlife, nourishing desert bighorn sheep, threatened desert tortoises and countless other species in one of California's harshest environments. How groundwater pumping would impact this ecosystem isn't entirely clear, but Cadiz's environmental assessment does spell out the changes to the infrastructure.

The new permit authorizes Fenner Gap Mutual Water Company, a nonprofit corporation formed by Cadiz in 2010, to convert a buried 30-inch pipeline from transporting oil and natural gas to transporting water between Cadiz in San Bernardino County and Mojave in Kern County.

About 65 miles of the pipeline cross BLM property, and 18 miles run through Edwards Air Force Base, where Fenner Gap is separately seeking a military easement. The route also crosses environmentally sensitive areas, including the Mojave Trails National Monument and South Mojave-Amboy California Desert National Conservation Lands.

The project would add seven pump stations - three on BLM property - and refurbish portions of the aging pipeline. Project documents estimate that at least 16 miles would need to be replaced. Once operational, the system would be capable of moving about 25,000 acre-feet in either direction per year.

Cadiz Chair and CEO Susan Kennedy hailed the permit as a "pivotal milestone."

"After many years of planning and environmental review, the project is now ready to begin the construction stage," Kennedy said in a July 10 news release.

Fenner Gap's economic analysis said the pipeline could connect more than 100 Southern California public water systems with new and emergency supplies while reducing reliance on the State Water Project and Colorado River.

Not everyone is convinced those promised benefits will materialize. Civil rights leader Dolores Huerta said Cadiz has repeatedly shifted its public pitch over who would ultimately receive the water.

"The truth is, Cadiz hasn't kept its story straight," Huerta said in a statement shared with SFGATE. "They've promised water to wealthy Angelenos and others, and now it's Arizona. Yet they haven't delivered on those promises."

Can it stage a comeback?

Cadiz's plan has long hinged on how quickly the Fenner Basin can replenish itself.

The company plans to pump as much as 50,000 acre-feet annually. One acre-foot is approximately 326,000 gallons, or enough water to cover an acre of land one foot deep. The BLM, however, has not approved a groundwater pumping permit yet.

Scientists have starkly disagreed on the aquifer's ability to bounce back: The U.S. Geological Survey estimated in 2000 that it naturally recharges 2,000 to 10,000 acre-feet per year, while a later study prepared by consulting firm CH2M Hill placed it at 32,500 acre-feet.

The BLM did not resolve that scientific dispute in its latest review. Instead, the agency determined that groundwater extraction from the basin was a separate action outside the scope of its pipeline decision.

Cadiz has maintained that its project would capture groundwater otherwise lost to evaporation. Critics argue that extracting up to 50,000 acre-feet annually would remove water faster than the basin can replace it and could reduce flows to desert springs.

The California state historic preservation officer also urged the BLM to include the water source in the federal undertaking and evaluate whether groundwater drawdown could harm tribal cultural resources. The agency declined.

The newest decision breaks from a position the BLM took in 2023, under the Biden administration, that would require consideration of environmental and historic-resource effects associated with groundwater extraction.

The latest decision also comes after the consequential U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2025 that determined agencies are not required to analyze separate projects outside their authority or independently carried out by third parties.

The BLM issued a Finding of No Significant Impact, concluding that a more extensive environmental impact statement was unnecessary. The project would permanently occupy about 14 acres, including approximately 7 acres of BLM land.

'The swamp is draining the desert'

The federal approval also renewed scrutiny of former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt's ties to the project.

His lobbying firm, the Bernhardt Group, represents Fenner Gap and received $330,000 from the company between the firm's 2025 launch and April 2026, according to federal disclosures cited by the Center for Western Priorities.

"David Bernhardt is the definition of a swamp creature, and now the swamp is draining the desert," the organization's executive director, Aaron Weiss, said in a statement shared with SFGATE. "... A permitting process this mired in ethical conflicts can't be trusted to protect the desert, Tribes, or the public interest."

SFGATE reached out to the office of the interior secretary for comment but did not receive a response by the time publication.

'We are the Mojave people'

The BLM invited 14 federally recognized tribes to consult during its historic-preservation review. The tribes raised concerns about springs, aquifers and cultural landscapes, including the Salt Song Trail, and objected to excluding the groundwater basin from the review.

"This is the Mojave Desert, and we are the Mojave people, the caretakers of this land, water and wildlife since time immemorial," Fort Mojave Indian Tribe Chairman Timothy Williams said in a statement shared with SFGATE. "Their plan to pump and sell 25 times more groundwater each year than the aquifer can replenish would desecrate our traditional territories, and any community sold this water would be left with an unreliable, unsustainable supply. Science and commonsense makes clear that pumping more groundwater than is sustainably replenished is not only negligent, but dangerous to the American Desert Southwest."

No special-status wildlife species were observed during field surveys, but the agency found the corridor has a high potential to support the federally threatened desert tortoise, state-threatened Mohave ground squirrel and San Joaquin coachwhip, a state species of special concern.

The BLM said preconstruction surveys, wildlife monitors and work stoppages would be used to avoid harming animals.

Chemehuevi Indian Tribe Chairman Daniel Leivas told SFGATE in a statement that the agency's review failed to account for the relationship between groundwater and the Mojave's broader landscape.

"We will not allow the Cadiz Corporation to destroy the living landscapes that preserve and teach our traditional ways," Leivas said. "... The ancient Waters that formed and shaped the land we know today rest within the Earth below Cadiz. It is the living heart of the desert; to drain it would be to drain the life out of the entire desert. No profit is worth such desecration."

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This story was originally published July 15, 2026 at 10:43 AM.