Rogue Columnist

Magical thinking and Bolles

Two topics this week:

• Above is a water desalination plant at Eilat, Israel, which turns Red Sea salt water into fresh water. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates make up the biggest users of desalination, with 21,000 plants worldwide, even in Australia.

Now an Israeli company, IDE Technologies, proposes to bring such an operation to Arizona, from the Sea of Cortez at Rocky Point through the Mexican state of Sonora.

At a cost of $5 billion, it would deliver 1 million acre feet annually to Arizona. Or so is the plan. By comparison, the Central Arizona Project carries 1.4 million acre feet from the Colorado River. The CAP cost approximately $4 billion, with only $1.5 billion repaid to the federal government. 

In 2016, Scientific American proclaimed "Israel proves the desalination era is here," as one of the driest countries on earth makes more fresh water than it needs using this technology. 

Parades in old Phoenix

From frontier days onward, who doesn't love a parade? Phoenicians certainly did. (Click on the image to enlarge).

Date unknown, a military parade on Washington. That looks like the Ford Hotel on the left.

 

It's 1899 and the Chinese Division parades through Phoenix in the Winter Carnival. The name is obscure, so I welcome information in the comments.

The Indian and Cowboy Carnival Parade goes down Washington Street in 1903 (National  Archives).

February thoughts

February was always my favorite month in Phoenix. I can't say exactly why. Winter was passing and the hot days hadn't yet arrived. Although the weather has changed because of ripping out citrus groves, shade trees, and grass ("turf") and replacing it with gravel and pavement, somehow this February remains magical. Above is a rainstorm over Park Central.

I'm here for the rest of the month, although between keeping up my day job as a columnist for the Seattle Times and seeing friends, I've been less attentive to the blog. Thanks for keeping things going on the previous open thread. Some thoughts:

• The Super Bowl came and went. Although it was played in the taxpayer-funded, developer subsidizing stadium in a former cotton field in west Glendale, almost all the festivities centered on downtown Phoenix and the deck park. (Regular readers know I refuse to call it Hance Park because of its namesake's destruction of the center city when she was mayor; name the mountain preserve for her, which she richly deserves).

Anyway, this was a triumph for central Phoenix, which has reasserted itself as the center of this sprawling metroplex of lookalike super-suburbs. Light-rail trains (WBIYB) were packed with visitors. Restaurants and hotels did a great business. Scottsdale was irrelevant except for the corporate jets at the Airpark (more than 200 private jets departed local airports after the big game). An Urber from Scottsdale to the cotton field was said to cost $500 on game day.

SOTU open thread

Carl Muecke illustration