Not if, but when. That’s the future of water desalination plants in Arizona, according to the head of the state’s water department. They are controversial and expensive, but Arizona’s current leadership views desalinated water – or “desal” – as key to the state’s long-term water plans. Arizona sits atop an estimated 600 million acre-feet of brackish water. “Desalination is in our future,” said Thomas Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources. In late 2016, the state formed a committee to study the feasibility of desalination for a region with rising population and droughts exacerbated by climate change.