Mining Operator Fights Back
Against Cadiz Water Raiders
County Board of Supervisors' Memorandum of Understanding
is being hauled into California's Superior Court
Injunctive Relief sought over Supervisors' circumvention
of the California Environmental Quality Act
The Newberry Springs Community Alliance has become the first
organization in the Victorville-Barstow region of the Mojave Desert to openly oppose the Cadiz
water project.
The proposed water project would pump and transport a massive amount of High
Desert underground water for consumer and industrial use to Orange and Los Angeles counties.
Some of the water may also be sold by a private company to Riverside and San Diego communities.
Water companies within the county of San Bernardino would be allowed to
purchase back up to 20-percent of the county's water that is being given away by the county for
free.
San Bernardino County's First District Supervisor, Brad Mitzelfelt, whose
district is where the water is located, has been a major supporter of the project. Mitzelfelt has
accepted tens-of-thousands of dollars in contributions from Cadiz, Incorporated, the property owner
from where the water would be pumped from and privately sold.
The monetary bribes to Mitzelfelt are believed to have been used to
spearhead Mitzelfelt's now unsuccessful aspirations of acquiring a Congressional seat.
As a Congressman, Mitzelfelt could have further assisted federal grants
being allocated to Cadiz, Inc. for the building of a necessary 43-plus mile pipeline aqueduct.
Many citizens in San Bernardino county are still unaware of this massive
plan to giveaway water within their county. Some local newspapers have preferred to
brown-nose themselves with the current county Board of Supervisors rather than report the
water transfer that would gravely affect their readership.
Los Angeles Times May 16, 2012 front page story.
All of the Board members voted for and supported this water giveaway plan
except for Supervisor Neil Derry who refused the corruption and openly opposed it.
The Community Alliance has been approached by various people asking
what has happened? Why is the Community Alliance so opposed? Isn't Brad Mitzelfelt's
and the county's legal counsel's spin of what they have done correct and proper?
The Community Alliance feels that the county has been unethical and has
done everything possible in stepping around many public legal protections in order to ram this
project through.
Despite the enormity of the project, and the huge adverse impact upon the
public, the county Board of Supervisors only gave the public an obscure 5-day notice before their
May 1, 2012 vote on a Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") that gave the project's proponents
special and undeserved operating rights, and contractual clauses, that prevents the county from many
enforceable future controls over the project.
In short, what the Board has intentionally done with the MOU, is to tie the
hands of future county supervisors from undoing what they have unethically done.
To assist the public to better understand the dirty dealing being done
by the Board against the public's best interests (and remember that Supervisor Neil Derry was the
lone voice against this travesty), the Community Alliance is providing a link here to Tetra
Technologies'
Petition For Writ of Mandate And Complaint For Injunctive
Relief that was filed with the California Superior Court in San Bernardino on May 25, 2012.
(The petition link is to a PDF with a file size of 2MB.)
Whether a court will undo the Supervisors' action is not predictable.
Delaware Tetra Technologies, Inc. ("Tetra Technology"), is a salt mining operation
that is dependent upon the Cadiz area's water table remaining natural. Tetra's (above) court filing,
minus an introduction page and exhibits, is 20 pages in length and provides an excellent
introduction on the issues and the many alleged illegal violations.
Update: Here is an Inland Valley Daily Bulletin news article also on the court filing.
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