Will Cadiz Project Drain Desert Aquifers? (Capital & Main)

Capital & MainJune 6th, 2017Frazier Haney, conservation director of the Mojave Desert Land Trust, a nonprofit concerned with preserving desert history and ecosystems, finds that answer disturbing. “The nomination of Bernhardt is the opposite of draining a swamp in DC,” he says. “But it could end up draining actual springs.”A single disappeared spring can mean death to a struggling population of bighorn sheep whose home is in the Mojave where the Cadiz water lies, adjacent to Mojave National Preserve and bounded by Joshua Tree National Park on the south. Long-rooted plants, known as “phreatophytes,” reach deep into the water table to sustain themselves, sometimes, in the case of creosote, for thousands of years. Migrating birds, too, follow water through the desert.“We think of it like island chains,” says Haney. “On water, birds migrate between island chains to find food. In the desert, those springs are the islands.”Read Full Article