Arizona agencies have taken a key step that could eventually allow the state to buy desalinated ocean water.
Central Arizona Project (CAP), Salt River Project and the Arizona Department of Water Resources – along with the Southern Nevada Water Authority — recently signed a memorandum of understanding with a desalination plant in Southern California.
The ongoing drought in Arizona is prompting everyone to examine what lies ahead.
Acquiring water in the Grand Canyon State becomes increasingly difficult as water resources dwindle, including the Colorado River.
Under a landmark agreement, Arizona is negotiating to buy Colorado River water now owned by a San Diego-area agency, and experts say the first of that water could be headed to the state in four to six months.
The goal of the new agreement, signed by federal officials and leaders of water agencies in Arizona, California and Nevada, is to eventually transfer potentially large amounts of Colorado River water between states.
While cities across drought-stricken western states struggle to meet their water needs, San Diego has a surplus of the all-important resource. That’s largely thanks to the county’s investment in desalination, which other localities would be wise to consider.
San Diego’s desalination plant first opened in 2015, and it now supplies about 10 percent of the county’s water — around 50 million gallons a day. That new supply has put the community on a more sustainable path.
Congress will not stand on the sidelines much longer as the drought-riddled Colorado River system careens toward crisis and the states that share its flows remain deadlocked, one of the region’s most powerful Republican senators said Wednesday.
Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee of Utah used a Wednesday hearing as a show of political force on behalf of his state and it’s upstream allies — Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming — ahead of a critical decision point for a river that supplies 40 million people from the cattle ranches of Wyoming to the booming metropolises of Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Diego.
Arizona is desperate for water. So much so that its taxpayers are willing to invest in treating Tijuana’s sewage so it’s drinkable.
How would that help Arizona? The state would ask Mexico for some of its Colorado River water in exchange.
While the future of the Colorado River remains uncertain, officials from Nevada, California and Arizona are looking at other options to increase water stability in the southwest.
This week, the three states agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding to explore the legal and policy framework of possibly exchanging shares of Colorado River water and explore the potential need for federal funds to facilitate interstate exchanges.
San Diego signed a deal Tuesday to start talking about something that’s never been done before: Sell water to other thirsty states in the Southwest.
The San Diego County Water Authority received a lot of national press recently because it’s probably the only water agency in this Colorado River-dependent region that has claim over more water than its people and industries use. Even The New York Times showed up Tuesday to catch the Water Authority’s general manager, Dan Denham, raise a glass of desalted water with top Colorado River negotiators celebrating their shared interest in creating an interstate water market.
For years, Arizona has explored the possibility of turning seawater into drinking water as a way to help offset shortages on the Colorado River.
Now, state water leaders say a new partnership with California could move that concept one step closer to reality.
Water leaders from California, Nevada and Arizona gathered at the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant on Wednesday, June 3, to sign an agreement aimed at exploring interstate water exchanges as a way to strengthen long-term water reliability across the Southwest.
The memorandum of understanding was signed June 3 at the plant by officials from the San Diego County Water Authority, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Southern Nevada Water Authority, Arizona Department of Water Resources, Central Arizona Project and Salt River Project.
