Arizona Considers $5.5 Billion Water Desalination Plant, 200-Mile Pipeline From Mexico To Combat Drought
14th March 2023
Arizona’s Water Infrastructure Finance Authority has been tasked with reviewing a proposal for a multibillion-dollar project to construct a water desalination plant in Mexico that would pump water through a 200-mile pipeline to the border state as part of an effort to counter its drought-driven water uncertainty.
The Arizona Republic said the state water finance board recently passed a non-binding resolution supporting a potentially massive seawater desalination plant in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez that Israel-based desalination plant operator IDE Technologies would construct.
Through reverse osmosis membranes, the plant would separate salt from seawater and pump the fresh water through a pipeline across the Mexico-US border to a reservoir west of Phoenix. IDE said the new plant could replace declining Colorado River water that flows through the Central Arizona Project’s aqueduct.