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In light of dwindling water resources from drought, climate change, and overuse, Arizona is considering a $5 billion plan to desalinate seawater in Mexico and pipe it to Phoenix. The project would suck salt out of seawater, a process that requires tremendous amounts of energy, and send the desalinated water about 200 miles to Phoenix, climbing over 2,000 feet along the way.
This consideration comes just two weeks after Arizona announced that the rapidly-growing Phoenix area doesn't have enough groundwater to support future housing that has already been approved.
The proposed desalination project would cut through Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a 500-square-mile area along Arizona's southern border. The monument is a UNESCO biosphere reserve—one of the few in the southwest—with a fragile ecology that supports thriving plants and animals of the Sonoran Desert.
In order to power the desalination plant, IDE Technologies, the company behind the proposal, would have to build one of America's largest solar farms near Phoenix, as well as a transmission line to move that power to Mexico. The transmission line, in addition to the water pipeline, would require a 325-foot-wide right of way corridor.
BLM Restoration Landscapes: Snake River Plain
In celebration of the Bureau of Land Management’s $161 million investment in Western landscape restoration projects, Look West is highlighting a different "Restoration Landscape" each day for 21 days. Today’s landscape is the Snake River Plain in southwest Idaho. An investment of $10 million will help restore native grasses, sagebrush and other shrubs critical to the health of the region and its wildlife, including greater sage-grouse, raptors, mule deer, elk, and antelope.
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Whereas science looks at them as artifacts and specimens [with] no connection. To us, spiritually, they’re still very very real and their spirits are still there. And it’s important to get them back in the ground where they belong so that the spirits can continue on their journey.”
