Trump administration revokes Obama-era directive blocking controversial water project

The Trump administration issued a memo late last week revoking two federal directives implemented under President Obama that had blocked a controversial water project in California’s Mojave Desert. An acting assistant director at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rescinded two legal guidances that reinforced the agency’s 2015 decision that Cadiz Inc. could not use an existing federal railroad right-of-way in its long-standing project to pump groundwater from the project’s planned well field in the Mojave Desert and sell it to urban areas throughout Southern California that rely on the Colorado River Aqueduct. While the BLM’s one-page order didn’t specifically mention the Cadiz project, it eases the way for the company to argue for the reversal of the findings of the agency’s California field office, which said the company needed federal approval to construct its 43-mile water pipeline. The memo also noted thaUnder the Obama administration’s order, Cadiz would have had to go through a lengthy and pricey federal environmental review process if it wanted to construct its pipeline on government-owned land.t any future right-of-way decisions will be determined by the BLM’s office in Washington, D.C Under the Obama administration’s order, Cadiz would have had to go through a lengthy and pricey federal environmental review process if it wanted to construct its pipeline on government-owned land....more