So many things could go wrong with a binational desalination plant, with the number of variables involved. Better that it become apparent in early stages. Last week, the desalination project planned by IDE Technologies was delivered a blow when the governor of Sonora, Alfonso Durazo, stated that Sonora had not given any sort of approval to the plant being built in Puerto Peñasco on the Sea of Cortez (AKA Gulf of California) to provide water to Arizona.
In “Sonora accuses desalination company of lack of ethics“, Murphy Woodhouse of Fronteras Desk was the first to report the story in English. He explained that the Sonoran governor was responding to a recent article about the desalination plant that the president of Mexico had recently commented on when asked.
El Imparcial reported that Durazo said he’d “never meet with the company again.” (I will explain later why I question whether those of us who oppose a desalination plant can feel encouraged by this news.)
I regularly update the timeline on this subject on my Arizona/Mexico Desalination page.
I hopefully won’t have to, but had planned on writing about various claims IDE made about their project that seemed either blatantly false, misconstrued, or exaggerated. In December 2022 meetings, IDE did state they had support from the Sonoran government about the binational desal plant. ADWR’s director said on 12/20/22 that his Mexican contacts had not been involved in such talks, which added to my doubt about IDE’s claims.
The governor accused IDE of misrepresenting the meeting. “‘At no time was there talk of the provision of desalination to supply water to Arizona. At no time,’ he said,” according to Tucson.com. “Durazo acknowledged meeting with representatives from Israel-based IDE Technologies, the company that wants to build the plant, but not to discuss shipping water to Arizona. He said the meeting was about desalination technology generally.” It’s clear that the number of variables makes such a project vulnerable to breaking down somewhere along the way, and there is so much water on the line that Arizona may come to rely on if a plant does get built.
In January I tweeted about not finding anything in Spanish about IDE or a desalination in plant Puerto Peñasco, although I did find a vague reference to potentially selling some desalinated water to the US. There was some consideration of expanding the Guaymas-Empalme plant as part of the “Plan Hídrico de Sonora”. We can’t rule out that a different company couldn’t win over Sonora and Arizona. And maybe IDE had reason to think they had support or they could recover from this fumble. IDE has invested years and who knows how much money into this project. They probably won’t give up easily.
An interesting Spanish-language article (translation) by Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera from February 6 points out that Sonorans don’t know what to believe about Durazo’s position on this desal plant. This brings to mind what I referenced in Ocean Desal for Arizona: Dead in the Water, that the Rosarito desalination plant that was being planned, intended to supply water to the San Diego area although Mexican officials denied it for years.
Correa-Cabrera’s article brings up several important points about the implications for Mexico and a broader context of the Mexican government’s interest in investing in sustainable energy which involves lithium mining. This is related to something I suspect could make a major difference with desalination: copper.
There is a very recent boost to copper mining’s reputation that potentially could really put some steam behind desalination plans, and copper mining activities in particular. It seems that suddenly copper is being marketed as an integral piece to saving our planet (see NYT’s A Copper Mine Could Advance Green Energy but Scar Sacred Land). This certainly isn’t the case for those whose communities have been impacted or will be impacted by copper mining. Resolution Copper is no doubt interested as well in rehabilitating copper’s reputation.
Just this month KNAU published, “Sinema and Kelly urge designation of copper as critical mineral“. The letter cited in the article references copper’s importance to water infrastructure (and based on a quick search I confirmed that desalination does tend to involve copper as well.) Copper mining requires a lot of water. Freeport McMoRan, who has several active and inactive mines in Arizona has been integral to pushing for a binational desalination plant, and is represented on Sinema’s water advisory committee among other influential committees.
While a designation as a critical mineral may help with permits and such things, it looks like demand for copper is increasing either way. I’m going to take a deeper look at how this might facilitate an increase in copper mining in Arizona and in turn how that may foment desalination plans.
Another piece of water news came out in January that might relate to AZ’s plans for desalination. ABC15 covered the news on the report that came out that showed that there’s not enough water to support a lot of the development being planned for the West Valley.
“‘There are a lot of developers who don’t want that information to come out because it will affect the projects that are in the pipeline,’ [governor Katie Hobbs] told reporters.
ADWR Director Tom Buschatzke who served under Ducey and will continue the role under Hobbs, told ABC15 the department was ‘directed to work with the stakeholders to try to find solutions, and to release the report, essentially at that point in time when a solution set was available to us, but we didn’t get there before the end of the Ducey administration.'”
Could the solution he’s talking about be the desal plant Ducey was making promises to put in motion before he left office? Ducey did get the legislation with funding for WIFA for importation of water with the Sonora-based desal plant (intimating at an agreement with IDE, an Israeli company after a trip to Israel), but it didn’t quite go as planned, in that no agreement was signed.
I have no clue as to whether an agreement to purchase large amounts of desalinated water could count toward a 100-year assured water supply that developers have to secure before building in certain areas, but if it is the case, it seems like a really bad idea. Not only are there so many things that can go wrong in even a short time, but we should also consider how even aside from issues specific to a plant, the promise of this “infinite” water source is going to fuel even more economic growth and the environmental damage and pollution that will bring.
I believe desal-proponents were counting on the Republican nomination of Karrin Taylor Robson instead of Kari Lake, and that Robson would have become governor. Robson included desal in Mexico as part of her campaign and Ducey endorsed her. Some of her campaign fundraising indicated pro-desal interests as well. Since Lake won that nomination in August of 2022, I suspect there was a lot more uncertainty around the project.
I just read that Dave Roberts, arguably one of the biggest proponents of this binational desalination plant retired that August, which I was unaware when I wrote Binational Desalination for Arizona: Origins and Influence | Desert Water Grab.
I couldn’t help but notice that Mike Ingram is stepping down from his CEO position with El Dorado Holdings (he donated a lot of money to Robson’s campaign too). Aside from federal bribery accusations, it seemed he might have an interest in a desal plant ensuring that there was more water for the developments being planned including those along the Interstate 11 route he was involved in arranging.
In March 2022, Buschatzke implied that plans for a desalination plant were meant to continue to grow the state. “We want to make sure that investors in the community know that their investment is going to be protected if they come to our state,” said Butschatzke [sic]. “We want people who buy houses to know that they’re protected, that they’re going to have water for their houses today into the future.” How about let’s find ways to build more affordable housing which is far less likely to involve golf courses and pools?
As I discussed in Ocean Desal for Arizona: Dead in the Water, problems such as cost of water, lack of transparency, conflicts of interest, other accusations of corruption, threat of cancellation of contracts, major delays, environmental impacts and companies failing to offset or mitigate their harm, and beyond. This issue of shifting government leaders and lack of concurrence among parties is just one thing that can break down a whole $5.5 billion project involving a life-sustaining resource.
Desert Water Grab 