Cadiz Inc

A Santa Monica company pushing a controversial project to store Colorado River water underground in the eastern Mojave Desert for use in drought years has been making large campaign contributions to Los Angeles mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa. If elected mayor, Villaraigosa would appoint five commissioners to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which relies primarily on water from the Owens Valley but buys Colorado River water as well.

The Mojave Desert groundwater thatCadiz Inc.wants to sell to Southland suburbs contains hexavalent chromium, a carcinogen, in amounts that are hundreds of times greater than the state's public health goal for drinking water. The presence of the toxic heavy metal, which occurs naturally in the aquifer Cadiz proposes to tap, could force the company to undertake expensive treatment, driving up the cost of the project and ultimately the price of its water. The chromium contamination is one of several concerns raised by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which owns and operates the 242-mile-long Colorado River Aqueduct that Cadiz would use to transport its supplies to customers.

Cash-strapped Cadiz Inc. said its primary lender demanded immediate repayment of $35 million in loans that came due at the end of January. The Santa Monica-based water development company had been trying to restructure its loans with ING Capital, but in a recent government filing, Cadiz said ING declared the company in default on Feb. 13. Cadiz, which also needs money for ongoing operations, said it is "in discussions with several parties to obtain this funding."

CADIZ, Calif. - Three decades ago a group of businessmen pored over NASA satellite imagery as part of a worldwide hunt for large groundwater reserves they could tap to grow desert crops. They found the signs they were looking for here in the sun-blasted mountain ranges and creosote-freckled valleys of the Mojave Desert, 200 miles east of Los Angeles. The group, which founded Cadiz Inc., bought old railroad land, drilled wells and planted neat grids of citrus trees and grapevines, irrigating them with water that bubbled out of the desert depths at the rate of 2,000 gallons a minute.

Cadiz Inc., which is negotiating with the Metropolitan Water District to build a controversial $150-million water storage program in the Mojave Desert, said Wednesday that its losses widened in the last quarter as its interest costs rose sharply. The Santa Monica-based company said it lost nearly $6 million, or 16 cents a share, on revenue of $23 million in the second quarter, compared with a loss of $5 million, or 14 cents, on $20.3 million in revenue in the same period a year earlier.

Cadiz Inc., the agricultural company that recently lost a deal with the Metropolitan Water District to build a major water project in the Mojave Desert, said it negotiated a three-year extension on a $35-million bank line that was to fall due on Jan. 31.

People who say that nothing's harder to get rid of than a bad penny must never have met Keith Brackpool. The British-born promoter, who has spent the last dozen years pushing a scheme to pump water to Southern California from beneath 35,000 acres his Cadiz Inc. owns in the Mojave Desert, just won't go away.

A final vote by the Metropolitan Water District board on the controversial Cadiz water storage project may not take place until mid-January, district officials said Tuesday--a delay that could heighten financial pressures on its corporate sponsor, Cadiz Inc. The MWD board's subcommittee on rules and ethics scheduled a series of hearings and project reviews to take place through November in preparation for a final board vote on the $150-million venture.

The Department of Interior on Thursday gave its approval to a controversial $1-billion, 50-year project to store and pump water from beneath the Mojave Desert and create one of California's largest water storage facilities. "We're thrilled," said Wendy Mitchell, spokeswoman for Santa Monica-based Cadiz Inc., which owns the land above the aquifer in eastern San Bernardino County.

The Metropolitan Water District staff recommended Wednesday that the district's board indefinitely defer the controversial Cadiz water storage program in the Mojave Desert because environmental concerns and a drought on the Colorado River have dramatically reduced the chances it will provide useful quantities of water to Southern California. The recommendation, which was transmitted to the board over the signature of MWD Chief Executive Ronald R.

People who say that nothing's harder to get rid of than a bad penny must never have met Keith Brackpool. The British-born promoter, who has spent the last dozen years pushing a scheme to pump water to Southern California from beneath 35,000 acres his Cadiz Inc. owns in the Mojave Desert, just won't go away.

Let us today hoist a glass -- preferably of cool, clean Colorado River water -- to Keith Brackpool, a walking illustration of how the generous bestowal of campaign donations and other largess can keep a man cozy with California politicians, even in the face of evidence that what he's selling may not be worth buying. Brackpool is the chairman and chief executive of Cadiz Inc.

Cash-strapped Cadiz Inc. said its primary lender demanded immediate repayment of $35 million in loans that came due at the end of January. The Santa Monica-based water development company had been trying to restructure its loans with ING Capital, but in a recent government filing, Cadiz said ING declared the company in default on Feb. 13. Cadiz, which also needs money for ongoing operations, said it is "in discussions with several parties to obtain this funding."

Cadiz Inc. said Thursday that its Sun World International agriculture subsidiary filed for bankruptcy protection, adding to the Santa Monica-based water company's list of troubles. Sun World, a fruit and vegetable grower, said it has liabilities of $158 million and assets of $148 million. According to a copy of its Chapter 11 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Riverside, the company has debt of $115 million in notes due in April 2004 and interest payments of $13 million a year.

Cadiz Inc. disclosed Friday that it made a $1-million loan to Chairman and Chief Executive Keith Brackpool in July, only weeks before such loans to corporate officers became illegal. The Santa Monica company reported the July 5 loan as part of a quarterly filing with federal regulators. Brackpool put up 226,515 of his Cadiz shares as collateral for the loan.

Cadiz Inc. said Thursday that it narrowed its third-quarter loss thanks to improved farming conditions but indicated that it has not yet reached final arrangements with all lenders over critical new financing. The Santa Monica-based agricultural company said it would put off its quarterly earnings conference call with investors until after it completes "financing discussions" with certain lenders.

To airline passengers cruising over the Mojave Desert, the farms in Cadiz seem to appear from out of nowhere, an unexpected checkerboard of green painted on the dusty no-man's land off historic Route 66. On the ground, these checkerboards are actually thousands of acres of farmland, row after row of citrus trees, peach trees and trailing grape vines that produce hundreds of thousands of boxes of fruit a year when crops elsewhere are still ripening or are long gone.

San Bernardino County prosecutors Monday announced a $5-million settlement with backers of a failed bid to build the world's largest landfill in the Mojave Desert. Prosecutors accused Rail Cycle Ltd. of conducting a campaign of corporate espionage to discredit and financially cripple Cadiz Inc., a Santa Monica-based agribusiness with extensive holdings near the proposed dump site. Cadiz was the proposed landfill's chief foe.

Cadiz Inc., the agricultural company that recently lost a deal with the Metropolitan Water District to build a major water project in the Mojave Desert, said it negotiated a three-year extension on a $35-million bank line that was to fall due on Jan. 31.

The demise Tuesday of Cadiz Inc.'s plan to build a multimillion-dollar water storage project in the Mojave Desert places the company under a huge financial strain that raises the question of whether it can survive. The project, which was to be built in partnership with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, was to generate an estimated $500 million to $1 billion in revenue for the company over the next 50 years.