Former mayor: Thinking big can lead to limitless water supply
John Stewart sprays down the floor in the desalting process area at the Yuma Desalination Plant.
Mark Henle | The Republic
My Turn
Mon Nov 4, 2013 6:43 PM
Water, more than oil, will dominate the world’s economic focus in the near future. Not only will Arizona need more water for our urban and rural populations, but so will every nation.
As the global climate shifts and long-term droughts continue, cities and states with sufficient water for growth will be the economic centers of their countries. And those countries will be the new superpowers of the world.
We need look no further than our past to see what Arizona and our cities were like before and after Salt River Project and the Central Arizona Project. In those days, our leadership planned and began implementing these major water projects decades ahead of their actual need. Without that planning, and without those projects, cities like Phoenix would be shadows of what they are today.
Let’s do it again, this time with a private/public partnership of American and Mexican businesses and governments to build a series of desalination plants. Let us unleash and then harness the brain-power from universities on both sides of the border — and the youthful optimism that comes with it — to design and build desalination plants that will, for starters, provide contracts to American and Mexican companies and jobs to many Mexican and American workers.
Businesses and individuals on both sides of the border will benefit as the need for materials, businesses and labor grows. Construction equipment, restaurants, hotels, shopping centers, homes and tens of thousands of employees (including painters, laborers, engineers, electricians, truck drivers and architects) will be in demand.
Mexican laborers can work without leaving their own country. Border towns and cities in Arizona and Mexico will prosper; new and old businesses will flourish during construction and after.
But most importantly, the project will provide life-sustaining water to a desert that desperately needs it. With that water, we would have the newfound ability to turn millions of acres of desert into fertile, productive farm- and ranchland that gives us the life-sustaining ability to feed people in Arizona, Mexico and on every continent.
Critics will say it is too costly or that removing so much salt from ocean water will harm the environment. I say there are workable solutions to these and other issues that will arise with a project this large. America has always pressed forward and dreamed big. All it takes is what it always has: bold leaders willing to risk their careers for future generations.
We don’t have to think about this today. It’s easier not to. And I guess we could wait until we begin to run out of water. But isn’t it better, and smarter, to start today? Let’s plan and begin to build the world’s largest and most needed public-works project that forges a cross-border partnership that will improve our economy and security, as well as Mexico’s.
It also assures us a limitless supply of water — and sends the world to bed each night, fully nourished.
Phil Gordon was Phoenix’s mayor from 2004 to 2011.
As the global climate shifts and long-term droughts continue, cities and states with sufficient water for growth will be the economic centers of their countries. And those countries will be the new superpowers of the world.
We need look no further than our past to see what Arizona and our cities were like before and after Salt River Project and the Central Arizona Project. In those days, our leadership planned and began implementing these major water projects decades ahead of their actual need. Without that planning, and without those projects, cities like Phoenix would be shadows of what they are today.
Let’s do it again, this time with a private/public partnership of American and Mexican businesses and governments to build a series of desalination plants. Let us unleash and then harness the brain-power from universities on both sides of the border — and the youthful optimism that comes with it — to design and build desalination plants that will, for starters, provide contracts to American and Mexican companies and jobs to many Mexican and American workers.
Businesses and individuals on both sides of the border will benefit as the need for materials, businesses and labor grows. Construction equipment, restaurants, hotels, shopping centers, homes and tens of thousands of employees (including painters, laborers, engineers, electricians, truck drivers and architects) will be in demand.
Mexican laborers can work without leaving their own country. Border towns and cities in Arizona and Mexico will prosper; new and old businesses will flourish during construction and after.
But most importantly, the project will provide life-sustaining water to a desert that desperately needs it. With that water, we would have the newfound ability to turn millions of acres of desert into fertile, productive farm- and ranchland that gives us the life-sustaining ability to feed people in Arizona, Mexico and on every continent.
Critics will say it is too costly or that removing so much salt from ocean water will harm the environment. I say there are workable solutions to these and other issues that will arise with a project this large. America has always pressed forward and dreamed big. All it takes is what it always has: bold leaders willing to risk their careers for future generations.
We don’t have to think about this today. It’s easier not to. And I guess we could wait until we begin to run out of water. But isn’t it better, and smarter, to start today? Let’s plan and begin to build the world’s largest and most needed public-works project that forges a cross-border partnership that will improve our economy and security, as well as Mexico’s.
It also assures us a limitless supply of water — and sends the world to bed each night, fully nourished.
Phil Gordon was Phoenix’s mayor from 2004 to 2011.
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