Since the mid 1990, large sections of the Mojave Desert were purchased by some guy who on the run from England for crooked horse racing. A company was formed call CADIZ to grow lemons and tomatoes. It was soon discovered the area has the largest underground water sub-basin in California.
After years of very questionable deals, contracts were drawn up with several local water districts to drill water out and send it via pipeline to SoCal. The project will make Cadiz over 2 Billion dollars in profit. Key to the water grab is a pipeline the follows 44 miles of The California Arizona Railroad. The railroad is to get a large fee for the use of the right of way.
There have been many critics of the plan, but the largest is Sen Diane Finesten who created the Mojave National Park, which is under most of the aquifer. Sen Finesten vowed no water will be taken from the Mojave Preserve to cause the same type of damage as in Central California.
Cadiz sent a letter this to January to the BLM saying the water was critical for the prevention of fires, to power electrical equipment along the railroad and to have water for a future steam train. Please see Cadiz web site. Ever try to get BLM permission to do anything? Ask the BLM protesters in Oregon how well working with the BLM worked out
The President steped in a put an end to more theft of water that would have made a couple of guys billionaries. Google this stuff. It will make you vote for the big man again.
How you get involved is that if you live in Southern California, you will most likley run out of water by 2025. Why do you think these water districts were trying to buy extra water? But what the heck, we can move to Flint, MI by that time.
This is the real reason this happened.