Cadiz Inc. has raised more than $9 million to be used to advance the company’s environmentally controversial project to transfer groundwater from east of Twentynine Palms to parts of south Orange County. The cash was raised in a in a public stock offering held Thursday. Money from the sale can be used for funding business development activities, capital expenditures, working capital and general and administrative expenses. The prospectus was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. Cadiz wants to pump up to 75,000 acre feet per year from the Fenner Valley, 40 miles northeast of Twentynine Palms. The water would then be sold to other water agencies. While already successful in several legal challenges, it faces a major hurdle from a BLM ruling rejecting Cadiz’s proposed use of an 1875 railway right of way to build a critical 43-mile pipeline. Environmentalists say the project will fuel unstainable growth and harm groundwater resources. Cadiz officials say their project will take the same amount of water that would have evaporated from the area were the project not in place.
