PHOENIX — State officials are moving to create an agency to search for and finance the water Arizona will need if it hopes to support its current population and grow.
But Arizonans, particularly those who plan to move here in the future, should be prepared to pay more — possibly a lot more — to get that water.
The new Arizona Water Authority announced Friday by Gov. Doug Ducey would have the unique right to obtain and even own water. The state is considering piping excess water from the Midwest and desalinating water from the Gulf of California.
The agency would start with $1 billion in funding the governor hopes to set aside over the next three years.
That would not go far, however, especially with expensive new technology required to make water from elsewhere suitable for household use.
So the plan envisions having the state partner with private investors who would be willing to finance the projects — investors who would want a rate of return on their cash.
That is likely to mean the rates Arizonans pay for water, which often cover only the cost of treating and delivering it, will have to go up, said House Speaker Russell Bowers, R-Mesa, who was instrumental in crafting the plan, which still needs legislative approval.
“We’re going to have to get over the idea that water is cheap,” he said.
The key may be finding ways to protect residents already here, while charging higher rates or connection fees to those who come to the state in the future, Bowers told Capitol Media Services.
“My mother-in-law, 100 years old, down on her little lot in Mesa, shouldn’t have to pay the cost of a desalination plant in Mexico,” he said.
But the bottom line, Bowers said, is that without that new water, expensive though it may be, there just won’t be enough to go around.
“If we don’t do it quick, then people actually will be leaving this valley,” he said.
The Arizona Water Authority is the next step to the Drought Contingency Plan adopted in 2019 in the wake of a decline in Colorado River water.
It was recognized to be only a stopgap measure, patching together things like obtaining water rights from tribes and some cutbacks in agricultural use.
But now the U.S. West is facing its driest conditions in 1,200 years, a group of scientists reported earlier this month.
“If that continues for another 10 years, Lake Mead will be empty,” Bowers said. In fact, he said that at the current rate of use versus replenishment, it will be a “dead pool” in four or five years.
That’s leading to some radical proposals. “Desalination is one of them,” Ducey said.
How far the state’s money would go — even if it used the entire $1 billion — is unclear.
Even after the costs of constructing the desalination plant, current estimates are that treated water would cost $2,500 an acre-foot. That’s the amount of water that, depending on usage, is needed to serve from two to four single-family homes for a year.
So, think possible $1,200 annual water bills per house for treated seawater.
Bruce Babbitt, a former Arizona governor and U.S. interior secretary, told reporters this week that the state should not look to desalination to answer its water woes, at least not in the next generation.
“We need people to understand, it isn’t going to help us out of our present crisis,” he said.
Bowers, for his part, acknowledged that the state, in considering desalination, may be looking for a “magic bullet” to solve its water woes. But that does not make it a bad idea, he said.
“I would proffer that there aren’t any other bullets,” Bowers said.
Technology aside, Bowers said there’s something else that makes this a practical solution, even if it is expensive.
In Arizona, a host of laws govern the ownership of groundwater and surface water, meaning much of it already belongs to someone. Even treated effluent, Bowers noted, is subject to certain regulations.
The water authority will not have the right to use “eminent domain” to seize water that belongs to someone else.
But new water from somewhere else? That’s not covered by state law. And that means it could be owned outright by the new water authority, which then would have the power to sell it where needed, without worrying that someone else’s legal rights were being trampled.
The high-dollar solutions like desalination and effluent treated to drinking-water quality — more colorfully referred to a “toilet-to-tap” — won’t be the only ways the authority could spend its money.
There are other options, Bowers said, such as paying farmers to convert to new crops or use different irrigation techniques.
Incentives to urban landowners to cut back on lush lawns — some Phoenix-area lawns are watered through flood irrigation — might result in water credits that developers could buy up for new subdivisions.
But Ducey is balking at any talk of forcing the issue, at least when it comes to farms, even though agriculture uses about 70% of the state’s water.
“Farming and agriculture is a huge part of our economy,” he said. “I think we’ve been able to do it successfully.”
Any change will have to come from within, Ducey said. “We’ve also had and seen the farmers and the companies that are involved in agriculture diversify their crops depending on what the needs and the costs are,” he said. “So I don’t know that it’s for the governor to decide who grows what.”
“And we’re the leafy green capital of the country,” Ducey continued. “I think we’ve been pretty good at it.”
The flip side of agriculture using 70% is that urban use is a minority. And while the governor said he thinks encouraging conservation should be part of the discussion and a “responsible practice,” he isn’t sure it would make much of a difference.
“It doesn’t do much to affect the water supply statewide,” he said. Still, Ducey said he does his part: “I turn off the water when I brush my teeth.”
The new authority would have a nine-member board, with six appointed by the governor and three state officials, including the head of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.
Of those the governor would name, no more than three could be from the same political party. No more than one appointed member can be from the same county, with a limit of two of the six coming from Maricopa, Pinal or Pima counties.
