Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs said Wednesday that she’s optimistic about Arizona’s chances of augmenting the state’s water supply with desalination.
Under former Gov. Doug Ducey, the Arizona Legislature set aside $1 billion for water augmentation projects. At the time, Ducey spoke of the possibility of building a desalination plant in partnership with Mexico.
But since Hobbs took office in 2023, most of the funding earmarked for water was clawed back in state budget negotiations.
She also wouldn’t say whether those cuts to the state Water Infrastructure Finance Authority were meant to be permanent.
Since taking office, Hobbs has focused largely on groundwater issues within the state, not on augmentation projects.
At a University of Arizona water conference, Hobbs said that doesn’t mean desalination is no longer a possibility.
“I think there absolutely is room to move forward on this. I'm looking forward to having these conversations. We have to make sure that we're in partnership and not trying to force these projects on our neighbors,” Hobbs said.
She added that desalination negotiations must be approached diplomatically with Mexico, and she accused her predecessor of not doing that when he left office.
In 2022, it appeared that Ducey’s administration had already begun talks with an Israeli company called IDE about building a desalination plant on the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, and some stakeholders had already signed non-disclosure agreements about the talks.
That led to concerns by lawmakers and other groups about transparency and accusations of backroom deals.
The government of the Mexican state Sonora — where the desalination plant would presumably be built — criticized IDE at the time and said they wouldn’t work with the company because they were misrepresenting the idea that they’d agreed to something.
“Due to the lack of ethics by the company — intending to change the courtesy they were given into a negotiation about desalination, the Sonoran government will not do anything else with this company again,” the post, which was written in Spanish, said.
