Stantec to Lead Engineering of $800M Mojave Groundwater Bank Project

Design and engineering agency Stantec will function proprietor’s engineer of the $800-million Mojave Groundwater Financial institution mission, designed to deliver reasonably priced water provides to abandon communities in California and Arizona.

Cadiz, the non-public firm main the mission, introduced the deal in late February, saying in a statement that Stantec will oversee design, growth and building of the mission that, as soon as accomplished, is predicted to offer 1 million acre-feet of underground storage and a couple of.5 million acre-feet of latest water provide.

The Mojave Groundwater Financial institution is an aquifer system holding as a lot as 50 million acre-feet of water, roughly the capability of Lake Mead and Lake Powell mixed, the businesses said. The mission consists of linking the reservoir to a 350-mile pipeline community connecting to each the Colorado River and California aqueducts, making it the most important new water infrastructure mission within the Southwest, Cadiz says.

“Water provide variability ensuing from local weather change threatens long-term water safety all through the western U.S., and the water supply system should be up to date and expanded to soundly and reliably meet the wants of our communities,” John Hanula, Stantec senior vice chairman, stated in an organization statement.

Underneath the settlement, Stantec will help in choosing the mission’s contractor beneath a building management-at-risk supply mannequin. Cadiz didn’t present an estimated date for completion, however said that Stantec is predicted to “deliver the mission on-line on an accelerated building timeline.”

The mission represents a big addition to the two,000-sq-mi watershed within the jap Mojave Desert, positioned about 40 miles north of the Colorado River Aqueduct and 220 miles east of California State Water Venture services. The aquifer is of course recharged by 1,000 years of rain and snowmelt from surrounding high-desert mountains. The mission is designed to seize water in any other case misplaced to evaporation and retailer it for redistribution to surrounding communities within the Mojave River Basin, Colorado River Basin and California’s Inland Empire.

Additionally, the Groundwater Financial institution mission will mark the primary large-scale water infrastructure mission to be positioned on Native American tribal lands. In late 2024 Cadiz had introduced a partnership with the tribes to assemble, personal and function the mission.

Sometimes, tribes have advocated for water rights by means of initiatives with federal or state governments, which might then oversee and work with non-public companions in building of the mandatory infrastructure. On this deal, the Native American communities within the space opted to be fairness companions and operators of the enterprise, making a collaboration mannequin that might reshape how water assets are managed sooner or later.

Cadiz additionally introduced the addition of a lead investor, a public firm it didn’t identify, that has dedicated as a lot as $175 million in capital within the Mojave Groundwater Storage Co., an LLC newly established by Cadiz to assemble, personal and function the groundwater banking mission. Along with that funding, the Lytton Rancheria of California tribe can also be an investor and has agreed to take a position as a lot as $50 million within the mission.

“Cadiz’s partnership method to creating this groundwater financial institution places tribal communities on the forefront of water supply within the area, making certain that selections in regards to the area’s water provide can be guided by these with deep connections to the land,” David Sickey, former chairman of the Coushatta Tribe and presently a senior advisor for vitality and water tasks at Cadiz, wrote in a December op-ed column in The Desert Solar newspaper.