NO REVIEW FORTHCOMING FROM CALIFORNIA STATE
SUPREME COURT
Cadiz Inc. (NASDAQ:CDZI) (“Cadiz”, the “Company”) is pleased to
announce that the available time period for further review of
administrative decisions and judicial opinions validating the Cadiz
Valley Water Conservation, Recovery & Storage Project (“Cadiz
Water Project,” the “Project”) by the California State Supreme
Court expired yesterday, July 11th, 2016. As a result, all
challenges to the environmental review and approval of the Cadiz
Water Project under the California Environmental Quality Act
(“CEQA”), the toughest environmental law in the U.S., are now final
having withstood scrutiny by state superior and appellate courts.
“After comprehensive scientific study, thorough independent peer
review, public agency approval and validation in California’s
Superior and Appellate Courts, the Project has fully demonstrated
that it can conserve enough water for 400,000 people without
harming the environment,” said Scott Slater, Cadiz CEO &
President. “We have been steadfast in our commitment to do things
the right way, in accordance with the law, and we look forward to
implementing the project with our public agency partners as soon as
possible.”
The Cadiz Water Project is a public-private partnership designed
to conserve groundwater presently lost to evaporation and
high-salinity in the Mojave Desert’s Cadiz Valley and deliver it to
Southern California communities. Over the 50-year term of the
Project, an average of 50,000 acre-feet of water per year, enough
for 400,000 people, will be delivered across the region in
compliance with a comprehensive, state-of-the-art groundwater
management program that will be enforced by San Bernardino County.
In a second phase, the Project would store up to 1 million
acre-feet of imported water for use in future dry years. The
Company developed the Cadiz Water Project in partnership with the
Santa Margarita Water District (“SMWD”), Orange County’s second
largest water agency, as well as water providers that serve seven
Southern California counties.
“After 5 years of extremely dry weather and ongoing challenges
to our traditional water supplies from the Bay-Delta and the
Colorado River, we must continue to invest in supplemental water
supplies,” said SMWD General Manager Dan Ferons. “We are pleased
that any questions about SMWD’s certification of the Cadiz Water
Project’s EIR have been put to rest and we will move forward
expeditiously with the final discussions needed to transport Cadiz
water to SMWD and the project’s other participating water providers
throughout Southern California.”
Beginning in 2009, the Project started a multi-year scientific
evaluation, followed by independent peer review, and then a public
environmental review in accordance with CEQA, led by SMWD. In July
2012, the SMWD Board unanimously certified the Project’s final
Environmental Impact Report, which concluded that operations would
not cause any significant adverse environmental impacts to water
resources or the desert environment. San Bernardino County
independently reached the same conclusion later that year in
October and approved the Project’s groundwater management plan.
These public agency approvals were challenged in nine separate
lawsuits filed in 2012. One of these disputes was dismissed
following independent hydrological study in 2013 that summarized
that alleged environmental impacts, including impacts to desert
springs and water resources, would be “impossible.”
Six lawsuits brought by two petitioners, the Center for
Biological Diversity, et. al. and Tetra Technologies, Inc.,
however, proceeded to trial in December 2013. In September 2014,
the trial court issued judgments that denied all claims against the
Cadiz Water Project and upheld all public agency approvals. The
petitioners appealed these judgments to the California Court of
Appeal in late 2013. In May 2016, after Cadiz, SMWD and San
Bernardino County were joined by 11 ‘Friends of the Court’ Amicus
Briefs in defense of the lower court rulings, California’s Fourth
District Court of Appeal sustained the six trial court decisions
and validated the public agency environmental review and approvals
of the Project.
Following the sweeping May 2016 Appellate Court victories,
petitioners had the right to request that the California State
Supreme Court take up the cases. However, no Petitions for Review
were filed by petitioners during the available time period and the
opportunity for the California State Supreme Court to independently
review the six Appellate Court opinions on its own motion has also
now passed.
During the judicial reviews both in trial court and the Court of
Appeal, no additional studies were ordered, nor any language
changed in any of the environmental documents. The EIR, groundwater
management plan and all supporting studies were upheld in their
entirety.
"The Cadiz Project has passed multiple tests under our state’s
stringent regulatory framework affirming that it can reliably
deliver new water, while protecting the local environment and
supporting good-paying jobs,” said U.S. Congressman Paul Cook
(R-Apple Valley). “We’re in a drought that isn’t going away, and
California must do all it can to ensure we have secure water
supplies. It’s time to move ahead with this carefully planned
project and bring more water and more jobs to our communities."
U.S. Congressman Tony Cardenas, (D-San Fernando Valley) said,
“Access to new water supplies is extremely critical to the
continued vitality of our cities and agricultural communities, and
we should do all we can to implement solutions like the Cadiz
Project when they have been found under our state’s strong
environmental laws to be safe and sustainable. With the CEQA
litigation concluded, it’s time to add Cadiz to our region’s water
supply portfolio.”
US Congresswoman Mimi Walters (R-Mission Viejo) added, “I have
long supported the sustainable design of the Cadiz Water Project
and am very pleased that all legal challenges to the project’s
environmental approvals have come to an end in the project’s
favor.”
“Addressing our region’s water reliability issues will be
critical to ensuring a prosperous economy and opportunities for all
Southern California residents, so we congratulate the Cadiz Water
Project for successfully completing an extensive environmental
review and CEQA process - not an easy feat in California - and we
look forward to the project’s implementation as a new, innovative
and sustainable water supply for our region’s communities and
businesses,” said Tracy Hernandez, CEO of Los Angeles County
Business Federation.
“The end of litigation in this matter is very good news indeed,”
added Lucy Dunn, CEO of Orange County Business Council. “The Cadiz
project is the innovative approach Southern California needs for a
reliable water supply and now that the project has overcome all
legal hurdles, OCBC calls on federal officials to act quickly and
allow Cadiz to begin construction.”
“Southern California’s economic wellbeing and quality of life
depend on having a reliable water supply. Local and regional water
projects such as Cadiz are evidence that the water community knows
how to develop new supplies in ways that are sustainable and
protect the environment,” stated Southern California Water
Committee Executive Director Charles Wilson.
“The Building Industry Association of Southern California
(BIASC) has long supported the Cadiz Water Project as the sort of
inventive and sensitively designed new water supply project our
region needs,” added Michael Battaglia, President of BIASC.
“Opponents have used the CEQA process to tie up the project in the
courts for nearly four years, and now that litigation has been
exhausted, we hope California’s federal representatives will do
their part to help Cadiz quickly provide a new and sustainable
water supply to more than 100,000 Southern California
households.”
“A reliable, affordable water supply is critical to sustaining
the family-supporting jobs we continue to need across our region.
With all CEQA challenges now behind it, the exhaustively studied
Cadiz Project should be part of any regional water supply strategy,
and we encourage our elected officials to do all they can to
support the project’s immediate construction and implementation,”
stated Dave Sorem P.E., Immediate Past President, Engineering
Contractors’ Association.
With legal review of the Project under CEQA
exhausted, the Company and its supporters will now turn to
confirming its rights to convey water via a 43-mile pipeline from
Cadiz to the Colorado River Aqueduct and then into the service
areas of Project participants. The pipeline will be located within
a disturbed railroad corridor and will further a number of railroad
purposes in addition to providing nearly a billion dollar economic
stimulus to the Southern California economy. The colocation of the
pipeline in this route was studied in the public CEQA review
process and approved as the environmentally preferred route for the
pipeline.
About CadizFounded in 1983, Cadiz Inc. is a
publicly-held renewable resources company that owns 70 square miles
of property with significant water resources in Southern
California. The Company is engaged in a combination of organic
farming and water supply and storage projects at its properties and
abides by a wide-ranging “Green Compact” focused on environmental
conservation and sustainable practices to manage its land, water
and agricultural resources. For more information about Cadiz, visit
http://www.cadizinc.com/.
FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENT: This release contains forward-looking
statements that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties,
including statements related to the future operating and financial
performance of the Company and the financing activities of the
Company. Although the Company believes that the expectations
reflected in our forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can
give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct.
Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ
materially from those reflected in the Company’s forward-looking
statements include the Company’s ability to maximize value for
Cadiz land and water resources, the Company’s ability to obtain new
financing as needed, the receipt of additional permits for the
water project and other factors and considerations detailed in the
Company’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
CONTACT:
Courtney Degener
213-271-1600
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