The general manager of the Big Horn Desert View Water Agency hit two themes in the talk she gave to the Morongo Basin Conservation Association’s annual meeting. Dan Stork summarizes what Marina West said about an environmentally-aware interagency project, and water usage by commercial solar projects…
The first part of Marina West’s talk was about the Ames Recharge Basin project. In this project, water from the Mojave Water Agency pipeline is fed into the ground of the Ames Basin, within the management area of the Big Horn Desert View Water Agency, and is tapped to supply that agency, as well as the Hi-Desert Water District and County Service Area 70/W-1, following agreements among all parties. West emphasized the cooperative character of the effort, and the project’s respect for wildlife corridors and its respect for open spaces. Then West turned to water usage by commercial solar projects, a topic which said was characterized by “amazing ignorance.” She cited two already-implemented projects for which the developers had predicted low water usage. The construction of the projects used 51 and 37 acre-feet respectively. To illustrate that this is a lot of water, West said that 51 acre-feet would be about 12 percent of her agency’s annual water production. She also noted that properties used for solar projects are not assessed for increased valuation, resulting in the loss of a significant property tax revenue.
MARINA WEST TALKS ABOUT WATER AND SOLAR TO MBCA
