February 6, 2014 – The Property & Environment Research Center (PERC), the nation’s first and largest institute dedicated to improving environmental quality through property rights and markets, has published a new paper in support of Cadiz’s efforts to implement the Cadiz Water Project on private land and with private investment.

While assessing California’s current water situation, the paper explains that “given the shortage of water in Southern California and the unlikelihood of increasing imports from other areas, new and currently untapped sources are necessary to maintain the region’s economic productivity.” The paper argues that the Cadiz Project “exemplifies the sort of entrepreneurial vision that is necessary to maximize the value of California’s scarce water resources.”

After analyzing the remaining steps to implementation of the Project, which includes overcoming certain political hurdles, the study concludes:  “The Cadiz project has the potential to capture otherwise wasted water and send it to Southern California municipalities who are desperately in need of more reliable water supplies. … The fate of the Cadiz project should depend on economic and environmental considerations, not back-alley politics and favoritism.”

The PERC study was authored by Reed Watson, PERC’s director of applied programs and a PERC research fellow. Watson holds a J.D. and an M.A. in Environmental Economics from Duke University and a B.S. in Economics from Clemson University. The study was not solicited by Cadiz.

To read or download the PERC report, click here.