Gov. Doug Duceyโs office is pushing a series of controversial proposals to overhaul state water management. One reason is to assure investors that Arizona has enough water for future economic development.
But water agencies are warring over how to make sure thereโs enough water for long-term growth, and whether that means saying โnoโ to some short-term uses.
At issue is what one official calls the Colorado Riverโs โlast supply.โ Thatโs river water that no user with contracts to buy it โ meaning cities, tribes, tribes and private water companies โ wants in a given year.
Arizonaโs water users and agencies are at odds over whether to leave that leftover water in Lake Mead or continue to allow some of it to supply suburban subdivisions, among other uses.
That issue is one of more than a dozen topics now being discussed โ in private โ by committees and work groups appointed by the governor, in order to โget the stateโs act togetherโ on water.
The proposals have split officials of the Central Arizona Project and the Arizona Department of Water Resources and their supporters into competing camps.
In an interview, Duceyโs chief of staff Kirk Adams made it clear that growth is a key factor driving these measures.
With the stateโs economy, battered by the 2008 financial crisis and real estate bust, now rebounding, โthe governor feels we need to be prepared for the growth,โ Adams said.
When Adams meets with CEOs and other corporate decisionmakers considering investing in Arizona, water is consistently mentioned though itโs not at the top of their priority list, he said.
โWeโre making sure that we have everything in order, that we donโt have anything impeding our ability to create new jobs,โ Adams said.
Adams likened the current time to the era of Arizonaโs 1980 Groundwater Management Act, a nationally pioneering law that toughened state controls over excessive groundwater pumping. After that law passed, the state entered into a very big growth period, he said.
โThirty-five years is a long time for any policy. Itโs time to see if there are any gaps or things to be improved on,โ he said.
Kathryn Sorensen, the city of Phoenixโs water director, also looked back several decades to explain her view on this dispute.
โFor 30 years, this state focused on bringing as much water into the CAP and off the river as possible, to keep it away from California. Now that Lake Mead is tanking, we are looking at a total change in attitudes,โ said Sorensen.
โThatโs at the heart of this issue โ how much water do we leave on the lake? How much do you bring into central Arizona? And who gets to decide this on behalf of the whole state?โ
Underlying growth tensions
At stake is a few hundred thousand acre-feet of water, enough to raise Lake Mead by a few feet if it were all put there. So far, the governor's committees haven't come up with a formal proposal for how to deal with this water, and a CAP task force is now trying to sort the issue out separately.
The power struggle over this water has kept the CAP and the Arizona Department of Water Resources from reaching agreement on a broader Drought Contingency Plan-Plus that would cut back the stateโs water use to protect Meadโs water levels.
This issue also taps into underlying tensions among suburban developers, homebuilders, ranchers, cities and environmentalists. Thatโs because a healthy chunk of the leftover river water today goes to the highly controversial Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District, which like CAP is operated by the agenciesโ parent Central Arizona Water Conservation District.
The river water that goes to the replenishment district compensates for groundwater pumped out for thousands of subdivisions statewide, including dozens in Pima County. Such water is recharged into aquifers. Getting that water ensures that growth in places like Green Valley south of Tucson and Surprise west of Phoenix can continue as planned.
This water is available because Tucson, Phoenix and Indian tribes that have legal contracts for CAP water donโt always need every drop that they had previously planned to buy for a given year. So the CAP lets other users such as the replenishment district, that donโt have such contracts, buy it.
More such leftover water is available because CAP also has the right to take and sell unused river water belonging to irrigation districts, farmers and tribes along the Colorado River.
The replenishment district wants this water because, by state law, the subdivisions within its boundaries canโt develop without a 100-year assured supply of renewable water.
Homebuilders and homeowners of about 1,200 Arizona subdivisions, including 66 in Pima and southern Pinal counties, pay fees to the district to be members.
After the needs of the CAP contract holders are met, the leftover river water goes to:
- โThe Arizona Water Banking Authority, which stores it in large dirt recharge basins in the Tucson and Phoenix areas for future use in case of a cutoff of river supplies.
- โA large pool set aside for Pinal County farmers.
- โLake Pleasant on the Aqua Fria River northwest of Phoenix, also for use in future years.
- โThe federal government, to help meet its legal obligations from its Indian water rights settlements.
Officials of city water utilities, including Tucson Water and the Phoenix Water Department, told the water conservation districtโs governing board in January that they wanted much of this leftover water โ although not whatโs sold to farmers โ to stay in Lake Mead for at least the next three years.
This guarantee will help them persuade their city councils to leave some of their own water in Mead that they would otherwise want to use, the water utility officials say.
They note that their cities are already going to be on the hook for paying higher rates for CAP water once agreements to reduce water use for Meadโs sake kick in; less water raises the tab for each gallon.
At the same time, those officials object to having leftover water delivered to the groundwater district or the water bank, which donโt have contracts for it.
Underneath this debate, many cities and environmentalists have distrusted the replenishment district because they believe it promotes unsustainable growth.
City water officials also say the CAP and the replenishment district have a conflict of interest, because the parent water conservation agency is trying to protect Lake Mead, yet is legally obligated to find water for the replenishment district.
Dennis Rule, the replenishment districtโs manager, sees no conflict of interest because he doesnโt believe the CAP governing board would ever agree to deliver excess water to his district if those deliveries lowered Lake Mead enough to create a shortage.
The district doesnโt just benefit suburbs โ the city of Tucson itself was only able to prove its 100-year supply back in the 1990s by joining the district because at the time it had shut the CAP off, he said.
CAP officials say they wonโt support leaving all unused water in Mead, in part because they donโt know how much is available from year to year. So they donโt want to guarantee anything up front, regardless of future circumstances.
The CAP has a financial stake in this matter. Money the project gets by selling leftover water helps pay off the parent water districtโs debt to the federal government for building the $4 billion, 336-mile-long CAP canal.
CAP also holds the legal cards in this issue. It has the right to decide who gets leftover river water, based on past contracts with the U.S. government.
โIโm not confident that it is good public policy to make an automatic, open-ended, unquantified contribution to Lake Mead,โ said Tucson-based CAP board member Sharon Megdal. โNo other party to these Drought Contingency Plan-Plus negotiations Iโm aware of is being asked to do that. You should know what you are contributing and what you are expected to contribute.โ
The replenishment district also has influential supporters. The Home Builders Association of Central Arizona recently joined with the Arizona Cattlemanโs Association to put a full-page ad into the weekly Arizona Capitol Times supporting the district.
For ranchers, that districtโs use of renewable water to boost suburban land development keeps private land values stable. If thereโs no ability to get enough water to develop former ranches and farms, their value plummets, said Bas Aja, the cattle growersโ government relations director. โOur ability to borrow money on the value of those lands on my ranch or farm or feedlot goes down dramatically.โ
For the homebuilders, โthe district fulfills what we believe is a critical component of the state groundwater act โ to put water back into the ground,โ said Spencer Kamps, its vice president of legislative affairs. โThatโs a critical, critical supply. We need that supply.โ
As the riverโs supplies grow more pinched over the coming years, Kamps knows that the amount available for replenishment will decline. But he wants โa managed decline,โ spread out over time.
A quick cutoff wouldnโt stop development because the groundwater replenishment district could buy Colorado River water from other sources. But that water would cost far more than the CAP supply, raising costs for both homebuilders and homebuyers, said Rule, who manages the replenishment district. He estimated the total extra tab at $8.6 million over two years.
โWe know we are going to lose that supply. We just struggle with the kind of decision that automatically causes us to lose that,โ Kamps told a board meeting of the CAPโs parent last summer.
But for a Sierra Club leader who isnโt siding with either party in the CAP-state water agency dispute, the struggle over unused river water represents whatโs wrong with the stateโs broader water management.
The Sierra Club has never been a fan of the replenishment district because it promotes โmassive sprawl on undisturbed desert,โ said Sandy Bahr, director of the groupโs Grand Canyon chapter.
But that doesnโt mean the state water agencyโs proposals are any better, Bahr said.
โItโs a power struggle between two entities, neither of whom is looking at what is beneficial from an environmental protection standpoint,โ she said. โDevelopment is the motivating factor here on both sides. It always is.โ
