A Los Angeles company with huge landholdings in the California deserts has resurrected its controversial plan to store vast amounts of Colorado River water under the ground, for public agencies to use in dry spells. The plan by Cadiz Inc. echoes a 1999 proposal that prompted fears of “water mining” in the large desert valley north of the Joshua Tree National Monument. The critics said Cadiz would be able to overdraft amounts of existing groundwater from fragile desert soils while not replacing all of it or distributing the new supplies over the entire area.
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