By Arizona Daily Star
PHOENIX — The board overseeing the state agency charged with finding new water supplies for Arizona is poised to approve as many as five imported water proposals for startup funding from taxpayers this week, but at least one potential project reignites decades of controversy.
A conservation group and an Indian tribe warned the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority committee screening the projects behind closed doors last week that EPCOR’s apparent proposal is fraught with risk and can’t deliver the stable water supply Arizona needs.
Details of the five projects — two involving desalination plants and the others relying on wastewater treatment, surface water and an unidentified third source — remain secret until the full board of the agency known as WIFA meets Wednesday.
But the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe and the National Parks Conservation Association say it’s pretty clear EPCOR plans to rely on a controversial pumping project in the remote southeastern California desert that has been fought by environmentalists for decades.
