2023-07-03 12:03:32
More than 5,900 marine species, as well as the state fishing sector, might be affected or irreversibly damaged if the desalination plant that Arizona contemplates is built in the Upper Gulf of California.
This is a project called Plan Arizona that is being considered by the Arizona Water Infrastructure Financial Authority (WIFA) and in which they will invest around 5 billion dollars to supply water to their Capital Phoenix.
According to the researcher and PhD in Philosophy with a specialty in Public Policy and Community and Regional Planning, this macro project will be established in Puerto Peñasco and has the purpose of desalinating approximately one million acre feet, the equivalent of 1,234 million cubic meters. of water from the Sea of Cortez.
Read also: Alfonso Durazo clarifies that there is no agreement with Arizona for a desalination plant in Peñasco
He pointed out that this amount represents 10 times more than what Hermosillo consumes, a city that already spends twice what it should use, that is, 130 million cubic meters instead of 70 million cubic meters.
What is worrisome, he admitted, is that the development of this plan has made significant progress in the United States, where the WIFA was created and it was determined that the Israeli company IDE Technologies will be in charge of carrying out the work, in addition to being They allocated 5 billion dollars.
“All this happens in Arizona in the light of day with information, it is a project, and in Mexico there is total silence as if it had nothing to do with Mexico when it is the one that would put the water, this manifesto is preventive because it seems ominous to us that Mexico remain silent,” he said.
Nicolás Pineda Pablos, as well as a dozen activists, researchers and social organizations, presented a manifesto showing that this US project might represent the environmental death of the Sea of Cortez or the Upper Gulf of California.
It is a protected natural area
In this protected natural area there are more than 5,900 marine species, of which 383 are endemic, he explained, even in 2005 it was declared a Natural World Heritage Site by the United Nations Cultural, Scientific and Educational Organization ( Unesco).
“It can mean the environmental death of the Gulf of California or it can have a very serious impact on fishing, the Gulf of California produces 70% of the fishing here,” he warned.
In addition to the environmental and economic problems, he stressed that he has two other unfavorable arguments for this project, such as the lack of transparency on the part of the Mexican authorities regarding the work.
He also remarked that this United States entity has another alternative to guarantee the water supply in the region, such as desalination of water resources from the California coast, where they have open sea.
“It’s the United States, it’s not Mexico, like the United States, California has an open sea, it’s the Pacific Ocean, why don’t they desalinate all the water they want on the California coast? And why come to the Gulf of California? where is an aquarium in the world?”, he said.
Sonora government ignores desalination project
In this regard, Governor Alfonso Durazo Montaño said in an interview that he is completely unaware of the intention to build a desalination plant in Puerto Peñasco that would involve extracting water from the Upper Gulf of California.
“I have no knowledge, not of the Government, nor of the federal Government, nor of the State, nor do we have any approach from the American Government, in short,” said the state president.
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For their part, representatives of the National Water Commission (Conagua) in the State exhibited that it is an issue that has been raised in binational meetings, although it has not materialized for the moment between both border entities.
Currently the South of the United States, especially Arizona, is having problems with the distribution of water, there are even cities in this entity that must reduce the consumption of the resource from the Colorado River to guarantee more water in the coming years.
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