It is not a popular plan, but he wants to pump 814 billion gallons of water from under the Mojave desert to Los Angeles and other drought-stricken communities in southern California, and make more than $2 billion doing so.

"Yes, it's quite a lot of money," Slater, the 57-year-old chief executive of Cadiz Inc, says as he stands in front of a scale model of the project in the foyer of the company's office on the 28th and top floor of a LA city centre office block. "It's worth whatever the community who wants the water is willing to pay for it to meet their demands."

Cadiz owns water rights associated with 45,000 acres of land along route 66, about 75 miles north-east of Palm Springs. The holdings were built up by the company's founder, Keith Brackpool, a British horseracing impresario, who came to the US after admitting having breached financial disclosure laws in the UK in the 1980s.

The company's biggest investors, some of whom have been waiting for Cadiz's water to flow to LA for more than a decade, include the New York hedge fund Water Asset Management and Crispin Odey's Odey Asset Management in London.