Turn off Highway 111 just past Bombay Beach onto Hot Mineral Spa Road, pass Bashford’s Hot Mineral Spa and turn left on a dirt road that runs parallel with the Coachella Canal, and you’ll reach a large desert parcel. That swath of land represents the beginnings of Jon Becker’s plans to turn the Salton Sea region into “the water capital of the Western world.” Becker is the CEO of Global Water Farms, a La Quinta-based company that purchased the 641-acre site with views of the Chocolate Mountains and the Salton Sea in 2020. Global Water Farms envisions building a pilot desalination project, using the company’s proprietary thermal desalination technology to remove salt from the briny groundwater.