A funding agreement signed this week between Cadiz, Inc. and the US Bureau of Reclamation has put fresh attention on one of the American Southwest’s most contested water infrastructure proposals: the Mojave Groundwater Bank, a conjunctive-use groundwater storage project in southeastern California that has been seeking regulatory approval for nearly three decades.

Under the agreement, Cadiz will finance Reclamation’s technical review of the project, covering validation of water supply resources, assessment of proposed water exchange mechanisms within the Colorado River System, and identification of steps required to enable potential federal investment. Work is expected to begin immediately.

The project itself is substantial in scale. Located in the Cadiz and Fenner valleys in the Mojave Desert, near California’s borders with Arizona and Nevada, the bank sits above an aquifer estimated to hold 30 million acre-feet of groundwater. It is designed to connect the Colorado River and California State Water Project systems through new pipeline infrastructure, including converted fossil fuel pipelines. Cadiz claims it could deliver up to 75,000 acre-feet per year of reliable supply, and also store up to one million acre-feet of water imported from outside sources during wet years for later withdrawal. The Bureau of Reclamation’s technical review, funded under this week’s agreement, will specifically include validation of water supply and delivery capability.

Cadiz chair and CEO Susan Kennedy described the agreement as “an important step forward in our collaboration with Reclamation and other stakeholders to evaluate the Mojave Groundwater Bank’s potential role in augmenting water supplies within the Colorado River system and improving water supply reliability throughout the Southwest.”