Sonora accuses desalination company of lack of ethics; governor says it has made no commitments

By Murphy Woodhouse
Published: Wednesday, February 1, 2023 - 7:58am

The government of Sonora is criticizing a company proposing the construction of a desalination plant in Rocky Point that would send massive amounts of water to Arizona.

IDE Technologies, an Israeli desalination firm, hopes to send fresh water north of the border. But it was criticized by the Sonoran governor, raising questions about its future relationship with the state.

The government of Sonora took to Twitter on Tuesday to accuse the firm of a lack of ethics. It said the company tried to turn a courtesy meeting into a negotiation over the purchase of water, and described the whole proposal as a shared project of former governors Doug Ducey and Claudia Pavlovich.

Later that day, Gov. Alfonso Durazo said he would “never meet with the company again.”

He went on to say that absolutely no commitments were made in their meeting, and that no plant would be built unless it serves the interests of Sonorans. The governor was responding to a newspaper editorial that said the company claimed the project was moving forward without his objections.

A Phoenix attorney who submitted the plant proposal last December to Arizona’s Water Infrastructure Financing Authority did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Durazo’s statements.

That proposal states that the company had “done its due diligence to ensure that the Sonoran government is supportive of the project moving forward.”

Fronteras Sonora