Water
Our Water Resources
Our properties in the Cadiz Valley, Piute Valley, and Danby Dry Lake areas of eastern San Bernardino County sit above millions of acre-feet of groundwater (1 acre-foot = 326,000 gallons). Our Cadiz Valley property lies at the base of the Fenner and Orange Blossom Wash Watersheds. These Watersheds span an area of more than 1,300 square miles and contain approximately 17 – 34 million acre-feet of water in storage — an amount comparable to Lake Mead, the nation’s largest surface reservoir.
Rain and melted snow that falls in the surrounding mountains of the Watersheds percolates into the soil and becomes pure groundwater. Flora, fauna, and springs take what they need at the higher elevations and then groundwater travels from the mountainous upper ends of the Watersheds down through the valley and into the aquifer system. Over time, the water moves slowly through the aquifer system below our property and ends up at the highly saline dry lakes where it becomes undrinkable and is lost to evaporation.
Since 1993, we have used a small portion of the groundwater beneath our property for ongoing agricultural operations. We are also pursuing the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project to conserve some of the groundwater being lost at the dry lakes and put it to beneficial use by delivering a new supply to southern California water providers.
To learn more about the Water Project, click here.
To learn more about Water in California, click here.
