To increase water supply levels in Arizona, a state board has approved a desalination plant that will be built in California, as well as a wastewater treatment plant in Colorado.
In approving the projects, Arizona’s Water Infrastructure Finance Authority is trying to compensate for state cutbacks in the amount of water it gets from the Colorado River at a time when existing groundwater sources, according to the Arizona Capitol Times, “are stretched to the limit.”
The projects approved by the board come with a lengthy construction timeline, with the desalination plant in Baja California not operable until, at the earliest, 2028. That plant is expected to produce between 167,000 and half a million-acre feet of water annually beginning in 2034.
In approving the projects, Jonathan Lines, chairman of the WIFA board, remarked that the vote of the board “is not the end of the road, but a pivotal milestone. Big ideas, engineering and public, now come together to shape real water solutions for generations to come.”
The Baja California project, as proposed, would see the building of a desalination plant at the Mexican border. According to WIFA records, “water produced by this facility would be delivered through existing Colorado River water delivery facilities.”
The water supplied by the desalination plant, in turn, would be exchanged for a portion of Mexico’s allocation of Colorado River water.
The Colorado facility will see the recovery, treatment, and reusing of reclaimed water from both Mexico and the Centennial State. Water developed through the Colorado project will be available to local communities, thus “reducing their local withdrawals of Colorado River water.”
WIFA has said that it will “initiate more extensive stakeholder engagement” sometime next spring once contracts to build the new facilities have been awarded.
Established in 1997, WIFA is tasked with trying to meet Arizona’s current and future water needs by providing financial assistance for any number of water infrastructure, reuse, and augmentation projects. It has, to date, secured upwards of $2.6 billion in support for such projects.
December 8, 2025
By Garry Boulard
