HISTORY74 - Arizona Water Resources

My last blog post (May 2, 2023) covered the history of the Colorado River and how it is in crisis today.  This time I’m going to focus on water issues associated with my home state of Arizona.

 

I’ll start with an introduction to Arizona water, then cover the history of the use and management of Arizona’s water resources in two time periods:  1) from ancient times to 1850, when Arizona became part of the United States; and 2) from 1850 to the present.  Then I’ll discuss Arizona’s water resource status today, and end with a snapshot of future water issues and plans.

My principal sources include: “Arizona Water History,” bwcdd.com; “Water in Arizona: Our Past, Present, and Future,” azchamberfoundation.org; “Arizona’s Water Supplies,” arizonawaterfacts.com; “Some fast facts to know about the Arizona water supply,” azbigmedia.com; “Does Arizona really use less water now than it did in 1957?”, azcentral.com; “The Importance of Recycled Water in the Desert,” amwua.org; “States near historic deal to protect Colorado River,” washingtonpost.com; plus, numerous other online sources.

Introduction to Arizona Water

Arizona has a vast and diverse geography famous for its deep canyons, high- and low-elevation deserts, numerous natural rock formations, and volcanic mountain ranges.  Arizona has a total area of 113,998 square miles, making it the sixth largest U.S. state.  Of this area, just 0.3% consists of surface water (rivers, streams, and natural lakes), which makes Arizona the state with the second lowest percentage of water area (New Mexico is the lowest at 0.2%).  Arizona has an average elevation of about 4,000 feet. 

Due to the state's large area and range of elevation, there are a variety of localized climate conditions. Overall, most of Arizona receives little precipitation, and is classified as having either an arid or semi-arid climate. The northern parts of the state and the mountainous areas tend to have cooler climates, while the southwestern parts of the state tend to be warm year-round.

The major rivers of Arizona are the Colorado River, and one of its main tributaries, the Gila River.  The largest tributary of the Gila River, the Salt River, is Arizona’s third major river. 

The geography of Arizona and the Colorado River.

 

The 1,450-mile-long Colorado River drains an expansive watershed of 246,000 square miles that encompasses parts of seven U.S. states (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California).  Today, there are four man-made lakes along the Colorado River on Arizona’s western border that provide water to Arizona (moving north to south):  Lake Powell, formed by Glenn Canyon Dam; Lake Mead, formed by Hoover Dam; Lake Mohave, formed by Davis Dam; and Lake Havasu, formed by Parker Dam.  The river is also utilized for hydroelectric power through various dams along the river.

The Gila River is 650 miles long, and extends from southwestern New Mexico to its confluence with the Colorado River near Yuma.  The only major dam on the Gila River is Coolidge Dam, located 31 miles southeast of Globe, forming the San Carlos Reservoir. 

The Salt River is formed by the confluence of the White River and the Black River in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona.  Including those tributaries, the river extends about 300 miles.  The longest of the Salt River's many tributaries is the 195-mile Verde River.  The Salt River formerly flowed through its entire course year-round.  However, the free-flowing river would frequently flood, leading to the construction of several dams, beginning with the Theodore Roosevelt Dam, producing the Theodore Roosevelt Lake Reservoir. 

In addition to rivers and lakes (reservoirs), Arizona has extensive aquifers (bodies of underground permeable rock, which contain groundwater collected over thousands of years).  Groundwater is considered a non-renewable resource; this is in contrast to surface water, which is considered a renewable resource.

Arizona also has begun to recycle water, known as water reclamation or water reuse, by treating wastewater so that it can become an integral and significant part of the state’s water portfolio.

Early Arizona Water History

By 1500 BC, early Native American farmers in southern Arizona were constructing short irrigation canals along local rivers.  Flood farming during the summer monsoon season was practiced along the banks of the rivers and tributaries by at least 800 BC.

With influence from advanced agrarian civilizations in Mexico, three prehistoric civilizations arose out of earlier cultures to dominate in Arizona between about AD 200 and AD 1450.  The Ancestral Pueblo people occupied the high mesas and deep canyons of the Four Corners area.  The Hohokam lived in the deserts and river valleys of southern Arizona, including the Tucson Valley.  The Mogollon lived in the rugged central mountains of eastern Arizona.  A fourth, peripheral civilization, the Patayan, was centered along the Colorado River, south of the Grand Canyon, in western Arizona.

The Ancestral Pueblo used irrigation to increase their farm yields.  The Hohokam used extensive irrigation systems to become the master farmers of the prehistoric southwest.  They dug hundreds of miles of irrigation canals with elaborate webs of reservoirs - extending from today’s international border with Mexico northward to the junction of the Salt and Gila Rivers in the Phoenix area. The Mogollon farming methods were primitive, but did include mountainside contour terrace gardening.  The Patayan peoples dug no canals and only planted crops in river floodwaters. 

In the mid-to-late 1700s, Spanish settlers established the first European settlements in southern Arizona at Tubac (1752) and Tucson (1775), and started farming along the Santa Cruz River and the San Pedro River.

Spanish and Native American farmers grew corn, wheat, vegetables, and cultivated fruit orchards in irrigated fields.  Foreshadowing future problems, there was competition for water, leading to agreements that increasingly favored the Spanish residents over the Native Americans.

After Mexico achieved its independence from Spain in 1821, additional settlers from Mexico began arriving in Arizona from the south.  Winter crops of wheat, barley, chickpeas, lentils, and garlic followed the summer crops of corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, chili peppers, tobacco, and cotton.  Irrigation schedules were set by an elected overseer.

Arizona Water Management History:  1850 - Present

Arizona water management history evolved under multiple governments and municipal jurisdictions.  Following the Mexican-American War, in 1850, most of today’s Arizona became part of the newly-created United States Territory of New Mexico.  With the Gadsden Purchase in 1854, the U.S. bought additional territory from Mexico, to include the part of present-day Arizona south of the Gila River.  In 1864, Arizona became a separate, distinct U.S. territory, and in 1912, Arizona became the 48^th state of Union.

Meanwhile, as the population of Arizona grew, the cities of Phoenix and Prescott were founded in 1881 (more than a century after Tucson’s founding in 1775).  Though there were settlers in the area for years, Yuma wasn’t founded until 1873.  The other major cities in Arizona were founded between 1878 - 1883, along the routes of the second and third transcontinental railroads that crossed the state of Arizona.

The history of water planning and management in Arizona can be divided into six areas: 1) the building of the Salt River Project system in the early 20^th century; 2) the creation and building of the Central Arizona Project in the mid-20^th century; 3) the historic passage of Arizona’s revolutionary 1980 Groundwater Management Act, and the subsequent period thereafter; 4) the Indian water rights settlements; 5) Drought Contingency Planning; and 6) Recycling of wastewater.

The Salt River Project.  As early pioneers settled in Arizona’s Salt River Valley in the 19^th century, they developed a haphazard series of canals (including using abandoned Hohokam canals) to feed the settlements’ agricultural needs.  Toward the turn of the 20^th century, Arizona settlers were confronted with alternating droughts and floods, and they realized they needed a way to supply a consistent source of water. 

Arizona farmers were instrumental in lobbying the federal government for help. The National Reclamation Act, signed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902, authorized a financing mechanism for local organizations in the West to borrow money from the federal government to construct irrigation works for the storage, diversion, and development of water.  The Act resulted in the creation of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, under the Secretary of the Interior, to manage the irrigation projects.

In 1903, the Salt River Project (SRP), based in Phoenix, was established as the nation’s first multipurpose federal reclamation project authorized under the National Reclamation Act.

Theodore Roosevelt Dam was completed in 1911 by the Bureau of Reclamation on the Salt River, located northeast of Phoenix.  The arch-gravity dam (curves upstream in a narrowing curve that directs most of the water pressure against the canyon rock walls, providing the force to compress the dam) is 357 feet high and forms Theodore Roosevelt Lake, with a full capacity of 1.653 million acre-feet (maf) of water. 

Note:  An acre-foot of water is about 326,000 gallons, what it would take to cover an acre of land with a foot of water.  1 maf = 0.296 cubic miles.

Originally built between 1905 and 1911, the dam was renovated and expanded in 1989 - 1996.  The dam is named after President Theodore Roosevelt.  Serving mainly for irrigation, water supply, and flood control, the dam also has a hydroelectric generating capacity of 36 megawatts.

Theodore Roosevelt Dam was completed in 1911 as part of the Salt River Project.

 

Unsurprisingly, controversy arose surrounding the rights to water in the Salt River Valley, and that controversy was ultimately resolved through litigation to settle water rights among 4,500 landowners. Culminating in the Kent Decree of 1910, the lawsuit determined that almost 240,000 irrigable acres had a right to water diverted from the Salt and Verde rivers for agricultural purposes.  It established the concept of normal flow rights (i.e., the land on which water was first used had first right to water normally flowing in the river).  Essentially, the Kent Decree paved the way for the allocation and distribution via SRP of Salt and Verde River water.

The SRP has operated since the early 1900s, and, with the addition of power generation, is now the nation’s third largest public power utility, and the largest supplier of water from Arizona watersheds

Note:  Coolidge Dam, on the Gila River, southeast of Globe, was constructed between 1924 and 1928 by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which also owns and operates it.  The dam was named after the 30^th US president, Calvin Coolidge.  Coolidge Dam is a reinforced concrete, multiple dome and buttress dam, 249 feet high, and impounds San Carlos Lake on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. The project irrigates 100,000 acres; the Lake has 0.91 maf of water at full capacity.

Central Arizona Project.  In 1922, the federal government approved the Colorado River Compact (CRC).  The approach was to divide Colorado River water equally between Upper and Lower Colorado River Basin states, with the demarcation line set at Lee's Ferry, located in northern Arizona's canyon country close to the Utah border.  Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico were designated Upper Basin states, and California, Arizona and Nevada Lower Basin states.  Each basin was to receive 7.5 maf of water per year, holding 1.4 maf in reserve.  It was left to the states in each basin to further apportion the water among themselves. 

Arizona refused to ratify the Compact over concerns about the allocation of water among states, particularly California.

By the middle of the 20^th century, however, it became clear that Arizona’s burgeoning population centers would need more water.  So, in 1944, Arizona Governor Sidney Preston Osborn announced a policy shift in Arizona’s position on matters relating to the Colorado River water.  Negotiations for a Central Arizona Project (CAP) to deliver Colorado River water to south-central Arizona commenced. 

But, formal approval for such a project was not likely until California and Arizona resolved their allocation dispute over Colorado River water use.  Lingering animosities prevented any agreement between the two states, and so in 1952, Arizona asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a judicial apportionment.  Eleven years later, in 1963, the mammoth and complicated case concluded.  The decision in Arizona v. California resulted in major power shifts, between the states and between the states and the federal government.  Colorado River water was apportioned, with Arizona receiving 2.8 maf annually.  Arizona was the big winner, gaining almost all the advantages it sought in the 1922 Compact, and cleared the path for delivery of Colorado River water to central and southern Arizona with the CAP.

Meanwhile, in 1966, the Bureau of Reclamation completed the Glenn Canyon Dam in northern Arizona, near the town of Page.  The concrete arch-gravity dam, 710-foot-high, was built from 1956 to 1966 and forms Lake Powell, one of the largest man-made reservoirs in the U.S., with a capacity of 24.3 maf of water.  The dam is named for Glen Canyon, a series of deep sandstone gorges now flooded by the reservoir; Lake Powell is named for John Wesley Powell, who in 1869 led the first expedition to traverse the Colorado River's Grand Canyon by boat.  The dam regulates the flow of Colorado River water from the Upper Basin to the Lower Basin, controls floods, stores water, and produces hydroelectricity.

In 1968, following persistent leadership by Arizona Congressmen John Rhodes and Mo Udall, and Arizona U.S. Senator Carl Hayden, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Colorado Basin Project Act authorizing the CAP.

In 1971, the Arizona created the Central Arizona Water Conservation District (CAWCD) to repay the federal government for the State’s share of the cost of the Central Arizona Project (CAP) and to operate the CAP canal.

Construction of the CAP began on May 6, 1973.  The first CAP water deliveries reached Phoenix in 1985 and Tucson in 1992.   On October 1, 1993, the federal Bureau of Reclamation finally declared the $5.2 billion project delivering Colorado River water 336 miles into central and southern Arizona “substantially complete.”

The average size of the CAP canal is 80 feet across the top, 24 feet across the bottom; the water is 16.5 feet deep.

 

In 1996, the CAP began recharging water in an effort to increase the reliability of long-term water supplies. The recharging process involves systematically watering a site, and allowing water to percolate down through the soil, replenishing underground aquifers.  This “recharged” water may then be pumped out and used at a later date.  CAP currently operates six recharge projects which can store more than 0.3 maf of surplus water underground per year. These sites are an important component of operations and will provide Arizonans with a water supply they can rely on for years to come.

The 336-mile route of the Central Arizona Project canal from Lake Havasu to central and southern Arizona. Note the locations of the six recharging sites.

 

Ground Water Management.  For centuries the Santa Cruz River in southern Arizona had flowed almost year-round.  Reservoirs were built to impound river waters for farming, gardening, and to power flour mills.  New, deep ditches for irrigation and four years of natural flooding in the late 1880s and early 1890s effectively ruined the old irrigation system,

Tucson began pumping groundwater in the 1890s from wells all over the metropolitan area.  As more and more water was pumped out of the ground, the underground flow of the Santa Cruz River essentially “dried up,” bringing an end to irrigation farming along the river by the 1930s.

In 1940, with Tucson’s population at nearly 37,000 people, Tucson began increasing its groundwater pumping and for decades, groundwater was the only water source.   Groundwater was pumped faster than nature could replace it (natural recharge from rain and snow melt), causing the water table in some places to drop more than 200 feet.  Groundwater pumping also caused the land in some places to sink and drew off water from riparian areas.

Phoenix began drilling wells to obtain ground water in 1889 - before the Salt River Project began supplying water.

In response to warnings by the Bureau of Reclamation that the Central Arizona Project would not be approved without restrictions on groundwater use, the Arizona Legislature passed the first groundwater codes.  The legislation required the registration of wells throughout the State (1945), and prohibited the drilling of new irrigation wells in ten designated critical groundwater areas (1948).

In the 1950s, Arizona’s total annual water demand was about 7 maf, and demand peaked at over 9.5 maf per year by the early 1980s.  By that time, Arizonans were annually using roughly 2.2 maf more groundwater per year than was being replenished.  Arizona needed a tool to manage the allocation of its groundwater and deal with the massive annual overdraft.

In 1980, Governor Bruce Babbitt signed the Groundwater Management Act (GMA), implementing the recommendations of city, mine, and agriculture stakeholders.  Called one of the ten most innovative programs in state and local government at the time by the Ford Foundation and the John F. Kennedy School of Government, the GMA was landmark legislation intended to control the unregulated use of groundwater in Arizona’s most populous areas - Phoenix, Tucson, and Prescott.

To accomplish its goals, the GMA set up a comprehensive management framework and established the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) in 1980 to administer the new law’s provisions.  In addition, the GMA divided the state’s main population centers into four “Active Management Areas” or AMAs - Phoenix, Pinal, Prescott, and Tucson.    A fifth AMA, Santa Cruz, was split off from the Tucson AMA in 1994; a sixth AMA at Douglas groundwater basin was added in 2022.  The AMAs include over 80% of Arizona’s population and over 70% of the State’s groundwater overdraft. 

The GMA lays out the groundwater rights in the AMAs, including who may pump, how much, and for what purpose.   In 1995, ADWR established criteria requiring a developer to demonstrate 100-year assured or adequate water supply, before land is sold for housing subdivisions in AMAs.

Rights to groundwater in the rest of Arizona, outside the AMAs, are only subject to limited regulation; outside of an AMA, any person may withdraw and use groundwater for any reasonable and beneficial use.  (However, within special areas outside AMAs designated as irrigation non-expansion areas [INAs], irrigation of land is limited to acres that were historically irrigated before the INA was established.)

Current groundwater management areas in Arizona.

 

In 1996, the Arizona Water Banking Authority (AWBA), was created to set up a system of storing water underground for future use to meet the state’s future obligations

Part of the reason for the creation of the AWBA was that, prior to 1996, Arizona did not use its full allocation of Colorado River water.  At the time, Arizona was not expected to use its full allocation until the year 2030, and, during the interim period, the cumulative amount of water expected to be left in the Colorado River would have amounted to approximately 14 maf.  Most of that water would have gone to southern California as a result of the allocation framework set out in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1964 decree in Arizona v. California. 

In addition, Arizona water planners feared that California would seek a permanent re-allocation of Colorado River water based on Arizona’s apparent lack of need for the unused supplies.  Therefore, using 100% of Arizona’s entitlement to Colorado River water each year became a necessary strategy for ensuring a dependable water supply.  Creating the AWBA allowed Arizona to capture and bank its unused share of Colorado River water, maintaining its full allocation and ensuring long-term water certainty even in times of shortage.  Since its inception in 1996, approximately 4.3 maf of water have been delivered for AWBA storage.

Indian Water Rights Settlements.   Overlaying the progress in Arizona’s system of water management has been ongoing negotiations with Arizona’s tribal communities over their water rights.

In Arizona, tribal land accounts for roughly one quarter of Arizona’s territory.  Because many of the Indian reservations were created either prior to or early in Arizona’s statehood, some of the tribes’ claimed rights are likely senior to many non-Indian water rights.  So collectively, tribal water rights claims are significant.

Stakeholders in Arizona have worked to resolve many of Arizona’s tribal water rights claims, mostly in south-central Arizona, including those of the Ak-Chin Tribe, Tohono O’odham Nation, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, San Carlos Apache Tribe, Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe, Zuni Tribe, Gila River Indian Community, and White Mountain Apache Tribe.  Settlements typically involve the acceptance of a quantified water right and waiver of other claims in exchange for financing for water infrastructure projects and receiving approval to lease water off-reservation for use by non-tribal parties, and must be approved by Congress.

The construction of the CAP was pivotal in the settlement of many tribal water rights claims, as almost half of the CAP water is now allocated for Indian water rights.  With the completion of the CAP, and for the subsequent two decades, CAP water supplies were the critical components of the water budgets for Indian water settlements in Arizona [because they] provided a new source of supply to meet the tribes’ needs. 

While Arizona has made progress, additional important Indian water claims remain unsettled.  Those outstanding proceedings are nuanced and complex, and the claims exceed Arizona’s total available water supply.  While difficult, pursuing final settlement of the outstanding tribal water claims is essential to Arizona’s future, and will require creative solutions and compromise to succeed.

Drought Contingency Planning.  The Colorado River system has been stressed by drought conditions since 2000.  In addition, the Lower Basin has a “structural deficit” problem of about 1.2 maf per year, due to unaccounted for evaporation loss of about 0.6 maf per year, plus over-allocation of 0.67 maf per year.  As a result, water levels in Lake Mead, the reservoir that serves California, Nevada, Arizona, and Mexico, are declining. 

Because of the ongoing drought, concerns have arisen that water shortages could be greater than expected.  As a result, water planners have begun developing options for mitigating the effects of drought and structural deficit.

The federal government led multiple efforts to improve the Colorado River basin’s water supply outlook, resulting in collaborative agreements in 2003 and 2007, and a 2019 Drought Contingency Plan (DCP) for the Upper and Lower Colorado River basins.  Formalizing the DCP required a number of steps and agreement among diverse parties and interests: international, federal, interstate, and intra-state.

Following six years of complex negotiations, on May 20, 2019, representatives of the seven affected Colorado River states and the federal government signed the long-sought DCP document.  

On May 20, 2019, the Drought Contingency Plan was signed at the site of Hoover Dam.

 

The landmark deal laid out potential cuts in water deliveries from the Colorado River, based on specified storage levels in Lake Mead, through 2026, to reduce the risks of the river’s reservoirs hitting critically low levels.  Arizona took an 18% cut in water deliveries starting in 2022.

Recycling Water.  The water that flows out of your home from your sink, shower, toilets, and laundry, and into the sewage system is traditionally called wastewater.

Recycling this wastewater (effluent) has been a part of Arizona's municipal water management since the 1960s, e.g., Flagstaff (since 1965), Phoenix (since 1973), and Tucson (since 1975).   Since that time, the role of recycled water has expanded, and it will continue to do so.

Wastewater treatment plants, regulated by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, treat the recycled water to a high standard so it can be used to irrigate sports fields, golf courses, and private and commercial landscapes, and create or restore riparian habitats. It is also used to recharge aquifers and stored underground for use during times of shortage.  Recycled water can extend water supplies, improve water quality, reduce discharge and disposal costs of wastewater, and save energy.

In central Arizona, 95% of the wastewater generated is reclaimed to serve beneficial uses.

Advanced technology will soon make recycled water safe for drinking, becoming a viable option for areas of Arizona as water supplies become sparser.

Status Today

Additional Colorado River Water Cuts.  On August 16, 2021, the federal government declared a water shortage on the Colorado River for the first time, triggering mandatory water consumption cuts for states in the Southwest starting in 2022, as the continuing drought pushes the level in Lake Mead to unprecedented lows.  At around 35% full, the Colorado River reservoir is at its lowest since the lake was filled after the Hoover Dam was completed in the 1930s.  (Lake Powell, which is also fed by the Colorado River, recently sank to a record low of 32% full.)

In response to these conditions, on June 14, 2022, the Bureau of Reclamation called on basin states to conserve an additional 2-4 maf of water in 2023 and 2024.  Federal officials warned the states that if they failed to reach such an agreement, the government would impose its own measures. 

In addition to these short-term water management decisions, officials face longer-term questions, such as whether to renew basin water management agreements (including the DCP) expiring in 2026, and whether major changes to basin water management are warranted.

Since there was no consensus among the seven basin states, in April 2023, the Biden administration proposed three alternatives for cutting Colorado River water allocations.

In one option, allocation cuts would be proportional to existing water rights. This option would go easy on California’s Imperial Irrigation District, which has the most senior water rights, while cities in Arizona and Nevada would be hit hard by the cuts.  In a second option, cuts in allocations would be distributed in the same percentage across the three Lower Basin states.  The third option presented by the federal government is a “no action” plan, staying with the status quo for water use and exports, which is considered an unlikely choice given the emergency conditions.

A final decision by the Interior Department is expected in August, 2023, after a public comment period, and will affect the 2024 operation of Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams.

Arizona’s Water Supplies.  Fortunately, Arizona has developed a diverse portfolio of water supplies and management strategies which serve as the foundation of Arizona’s robust water system.  Arizona has 13.2 maf of water stored in reservoirs as well as underground, with 7.1 maf of that total stored in Greater Phoenix.  Because of the infrastructure in place, Arizona can pull and replace water as needed, making the water supply more resilient during times of drought. This allows Arizona to more effectively manage water resources, allows the state to subsist with the effects of continuing drought conditions, and provides more options in planning for the state’s future economic growth.

Snapshot of Arizona’s current-use sources of water.

 

Arizona’s water use can be divided into three categories: municipal, industrial and agricultural use.

Arizona’s water use by sector.

 

Since 1957, Arizona’s population has grown over 500%, to 7.26 million residents in 2022.  Its economy has exploded from a gross domestic income of $13.4 billion in 1957 to $356 billion in 2022.  Yet, despite that astonishing growth, Arizona’s total water use declined.  Today, Arizona uses less than 7 maf of water per year - three percent less than users consumed 65 years ago, due to increased conservation methods and the decrease in water used for agriculture.

Arizona uses less water today than it did 65 years ago.

 

The Future

The Southwest awaits the resolution of the Biden administration’s proposals on reducing Colorado River water allocations in the face of continuing drought conditions - a decision planned for August 2023.  In 2026, several current agreements regarding Colorado River water usage will expire, forcing new compromises to be made about water allocation.  So far, though, no one has decided what those new rules will look like.

Flash:  On May 17, 2023, The Washington Post reported that California, Arizona, and Nevada “have coalesced around a plan to voluntarily conserve a major portion of their river water in exchange for more than $1 billion in federal funds. … But thorny issues remain and could complicate a deal.”

Arizona must also come to agreement concerning the quantity, use, and priority of water rights in the river basins in Arizona, including those on federal and tribal land.

There are still unresolved claims (and probably future claims) with respect to Indian tribal water rights.

There is work to be done to define and settle the connection between Arizona’s water supply and the state’s forested watersheds - both water quantity and water quality: a healthy forest equals a clean, reliable, and renewable water supply.

Increased flexibility is needed to put existing water supplies and infrastructure to the most efficient and effective use. For example, Arizona’s SRP and CAP systems offer vast opportunities to move water around the state, provided the tools are in place to allow coordinated use of surface water and groundwater - literally going with the flow to maximize sufficient yield.

 

Arizona must address decades of water needs, while protecting Arizona’s various industries and interests, and providing the level of certainty necessary for Arizona’s continued growth and development.