The Cadiz aerial tour video utilises new photography, underground imagery and aerial footage to bring to life the vast and unique aquifer system flowing beneath Cadiz Ranch. With as much as 30-50 million acre-feet of water in storage today, the 2,000 square mile aquifer system at Cadiz contains more water than Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States. The water flowing through the aquifer has supported sustainable agriculture operations at Cadiz Ranch for four decades.
The new video was released on the heels of a new report from the State of California Department of Water Resources projecting that climate change will reduce water supplies from the California State Water Project (“SWP”) by up to 23% over the next 20 years. Built in 1960, the SWP pumps water supplies more than 700 miles from Northern California to Southern California through a system of pumps, aqueducts and open reservoirs. Many desert communities in Southern California rely on imports from the SWP to replenish over-drafted groundwater basins and emergency supplies during droughts.
Cadiz CEO Susan Kennedy commented: “This new report underscores the need for better ways to capture, conserve and store water supplies in Southern California. These massive natural groundwater banks in California’s desert like Cadiz are the key to water security for Southern California.”
Cadiz Ranch in San Bernardino County, California sits at the base of a 2,000 square mile watershed system roughly four times the size of the City of Los Angeles. The video released today provides an aerial tour of this remote corner of California desert crisscrossed by railroads, interstate highways, gas and power lines. The video takes the viewer from the summits of the New York Mountains at 7,500 feet to a thousand feet underground, tracing the movement of water through this dynamic watershed and aquifer system where it seeps to the surface, turns to brine and evaporates at desert dry lakes.
Cadiz is in the process of developing the largest new groundwater banking operation in the Southwestern U.S., which includes capturing and conserving groundwater before it is lost to evaporation. When operational, conserved water supplies will be transported through underground pipelines to support local communities in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties as part of the Company’s water supply and storage project.
