Gov. Doug Ducey’s proposal to spend $1 billion over 3 years for desalinating seawater and other infrastructure will not be a “one-size-fits-all” plan, says the Senate president who will have to help shepherd the potentially controversial measure through a crowded legislative agenda.
Legislation to be released by Feb. 7 will set up a program to achieve short-, medium- and long-term goals for bringing Arizona’s water supplies and demands into balance, said Senate President Karen Fann.
Not only will ocean water desalination plants costing billions of dollars be considered, but so will less expensive alternative supplies such as desalinating brackish Arizona groundwater and treating wastewater to drinking quality, said Fann. Any good idea will get a hearing, the Prescott Republican told the Star in an interview.
“We want everybody to the table. I don’t care whether they are Democrats, Republicans or anything else. If they have a good idea, let’s bring them to the table,” Fann said.
Advocates who have watched numerous bills to tighten up Arizona’s water use, particularly in rural areas, die in past sessions without getting a hearing might scoff at Fann’s assurances. But Fann insists that for one thing, she has not made up her mind as to how many desalination plants she would like to see built using Arizona tax dollars, let alone when they should be built.
She also agrees with some water researchers that cheaper ideas such as wastewater reclamation deserve full consideration, and soon.
Here is a Q&A with Fann conducted last week, edited for length: :
Are you backing Gov. Ducey’s desalination push? If so, why?
A: Let me be very clear about something. The governor didn’t specifically say he will do A, B and C. Let’s talk about what we are doing here. We need to identify short-term, mid-term and long-term goals.
What are they?
A: The short-term is low-hanging fruit. That’s what can we do to conserve water better, to the best of our ability. Some things we are doing now, like low water use toilets and showers and zeroscape landscaping.
The mid-range goals start with 75% of all water used in Arizona is for agriculture. A lot of that is on flood irrigation. Could we save water by starting to switch farmers and ranchers to drip irrigation? Two 500-acre test projects, so far, not only are they producing as much in the way of fruit, vegetables, whatever they grow there, they use 25% less water. What can we do to move farmers and ranchers as much as possible to drip irrigation?
What are the long-range goals?
A: They could be 20 years from now. It might be a desalination project. It might be working with a joint partnership with Mexico in the Gulf (of California) in the bay. We work out something with them. But that’s going to be a long-range project. It’s going to cost a lot of money.
If that’s the direction we’re going to go, we need to have money set aside to do that. Maybe an international agreement, maybe an agreement with California. Those are long-range goals we have to start planning. It could be 40 years if we don’t start planning for it right now.
The $1 billion the governor wants to spend over the next three years on desalination and other water infrastructure — how will it be used?
A: The $1 billion will be seed money that will kick-start these projects. Do we add to that every year? Is it going to be a revolving fund? Will we replenish it? Those are the details we need to work out.
When will we see the details of legislation you’ll propose?
A. The deadline to introduce bills in the Senate is Monday, Jan. 31. The House is the following Monday. We have bill folders — one under (House Speaker Rusty) Bowers’ name, one under my name. We’re meeting two hours a week, drafting language. We will have a bill ready to propose in time.
How will this bill work?
A: It’s going to set up the structure of how we are going to do it. Those on the committee, on the water authority, will be setting up short- and mid-range plans, based on best practices. This is not something that you put into the bill, to say ‘this is what you do’. You set up a structure, financing and guard rails for it. Then you let the experts come up with the details.
There will be a water authority, someone to oversee that billion dollars worth of money. Where do we put that money? Who has the authority to oversee the money? Are we going to work with public private partnerships? Work with municipalities?
We’re talking about new water, existing water. There’s so many things to answer.
There’s been criticism from environmentalists and others that the state will be putting too much money and energy into desalination, and not enough into fixing existing water problems, such as unregulated pumping in rural areas that’s draining aquifers.
A: First and foremost, let me say it’s not a one-size-fits-all-thing. There will be a number of things that get us there. This is not a this or that. This is a combination of what’s going to get us to safe yield. (Safe yield is a condition in which the amount of groundwater pumped from an aquifer does not exceed the amount of water replenishing the aquifer by rainfall or other means.)
But critics say the state is allowing too much unregulated groundwater pumping.
A: What do they mean by regulation? Regulation does have different meanings to different people. I come from Prescott. I’ve been working on water for 30 to 35 years already. We have people that are wanting to regulate (homeowners’) exempt wells, to put a meter on them. First of all, we can only pump 35 gallons per minute (with exempt wells) to begin with. This isn’t like large irrigation wells, like in other areas.
I will tell you when rural Arizona hears about others wanting to regulate exempt domestic wells, some want to talk about why is it in Phoenix that so many people have swimming pools, why the (Central Arizona Project) canal is not covered and how much water that loses to evaporation. Nobody wants to talk about that. They want to talk about regulating exempt wells.
A lot of environmentalists are more concerned about non-exempt agricultural wells, which can legally pump unlimited amounts of groundwater. Such pumping is blamed for aquifer declines in Cochise, Mohave and La Paz counties.
A: That goes directly back to what I’m talking about. Can we move our farmers away from flood irrigation … to drip irrigation? Like in Israel, where they still use agricultural wells and they’re not metering, but using less water.
We are asking for $1 billion in our budget. That would be our first start (drip irrigation for farmers). In 20 years we would have the ability to do a desalination plant.
Researchers are split over seawater desalination, with some seeing it as “another tool in the toolbox,” while others say it’s way too expensive, costing at least twice as much as treating to drinking quality either wastewater or brackish water from the aquifer.
A: That (treating wastewater to drink) is a definite possibility. We need all good ideas to come to the table. What is cost effective, doable, feasible in the short-term, mid-term, long-range? Nothing is off the table, but we are going to be very careful not to do something for one group at the expense of another group. It’s one for all and all for one.
How many desalination plants would you want? Is two — which is what the agencies are studying — enough? Or are more needed?
A: I’d never commit on that. I’m not the expert on the field to tell you. I don’t know when we would be building them or what it would cost to build them, to operate them. That could be totally different 20 years from now. Who knows? In 20 years there might be a whole new desalination plant engineered that is the best thing since sliced bread.
Rep. Andres Cano, D-Tucson, has dropped a slew of water bills into the legislative hopper. One would let the state ban expansion of irrigation in an area based on projected future groundwater use. Another would bar cities, towns or counties in rural areas from approving a subdivision unless it has an adequate 100-year water supply — a requirement already on the books in Tucson and Phoenix.
A third would create water use measuring and reporting requirements for larger wells outside of urban areas. A fourth would ban the drilling of new wells in the Upper San Pedro or Verde Valley groundwater basins unless the state determines it won’t interfere with ongoing court cases to determine who has water rights in those areas.
Many bills like these have died without even a vote in the past, because committee chairs wouldn’t give them a hearing. Will these get a hearing this year?
A: If they are good bills, they are going to get a hearing. There are Democrat bills that have passed. Please remember, water is a big issue. You cannot have a piecemeal approach to it. You may have legislators that have great ideas. You cannot have a bill that is potentially in conflict with another bill.
Also, property rights are a huge thing here. I see a lot of bills come through; our attorneys look at it and say ‘no, the property rights will be violated.’
