In Baja California, the Mexican company NSC Agua is hoping to build a ground-breaking desalination project that would become the largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere.^[1]  However, as reported in the San Diego Union-Tribune, the two groups that jointly proposed to build the plant are suing each other in U.S. and Mexican courts.

Since June 2015, San Diego resident Gough Thompson has been seeking legal redress against his partners for illegally pushing him out of the project in February 2012 “without his knowledge or consent”—by reducing his shares from 25 percent to 0.1 percent.^[2]  Opposing Thompson are two primary parties: Baja California businessman Alejandro de la Vega (who sold his shares in 2014), and Consolidated Water Co. (a Cayman Islands company) which currently has 99.9 percent of the shares in NSC Agua.   Consolidated Water Co., together with Thompson and de la Vega, formed NSC Agua to develop the Rosarito desalination plant.^[3]  To counter Thompson’s lawsuit filed in Baja California, Consolidated Water filed its own lawsuit in a New York City court, in an attempt to prevent Thompson’s lawsuit from proceeding.

While these lawsuits play out in court, NSC Agua is going to submit a bid to build, finance, and operate the Rosarito plant – the third utility-scale desalination plant in Baja California.  If successful, the plant would become the second to be approved under the state’s 2014 public-private partnership law.  It will produce 378,500 cubic metres of water per day, and the first phase of construction is scheduled to finish in 2019. 

Across the border, in San Diego County, Otay Water District officials are interested in purchasing water from the Rosarito plant.  The water district has sought a “presidential permit to build a cross-border pipeline” that is capable of transporting 189,300 cubic metres of water per day from Mexico to California.^[4]

After several years of negotiations, the Namibian government has revealed it is close to completing a deal with Areva Resources to purchase the company’s desalination plant.  Namibia is currently struggling with intensive water shortages—and Areva’s plant is the only facility of its kind in the country.  Abraham Nehemia, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, has said that the government’s negotiating team has drafted and submitted a report to the Cabinet regarding its terms of purchase.^[5]  The government team, which consists of senior civil servants, is awaiting feedback from the Cabinet.  If successful in its negotiations, the Namibian government will be able to increase water supply to residents and businesses of the Erongo region.

The Erongo region has no perennial rivers and has traditionally relied on water from the depleted Kuiseb and Omdel aquifers.  Areva’s plant, which is located at Wlotzkasbaken close to Swakopmund, currently supplies water to the the Husab and Rössing uranium mines.   While the Erongo region’s annual water demand is 11 million cubic metres of water—the plant is capable of producing 20 million cubic metres of water annually.^[6]

In other news: the state government in Maharashtra, India is deliberating the construction of a desalination plant.   The state’s Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis, has reported that the state will soon release a project report that investigates the optimal desalination technology for a potential plant.^[7]  Minister Fadnavis’s statement comes in the wake of issues raised in the state’s legislative council, urging the government to consider “new technology” to address the region’s growing demand for water.^[8]  Located along the shores of the Arabian Sea, a plant in Maharashtra would alleviate water shortages in the city of Mumbai.