Arizona is very close to triggering water war
Arizona is once again at a critical decision point in the ongoing struggle to secure our water resources. If we fail to take the right course, we risk igniting yet another Colorado River water war.
Lake Mead, from which we draw our share of the Colorado River, is dropping to perilous levels. To stabilize lake levels and protect our water supply, the Department of Water Resources has negowater an agreement with California and the other basin states to begin reducing water diversions from the Lake.
California and the other basin states are ready to sign the agreement, known as the Drought Contingency Plan. Arizona is the lone holdout, mainly because our state Legislature, caught up in special interest demands, has failed to ratify the DCP agreement.
Behind this legislative impasse are two groups threatening to block ratification.
The first is the Central Arizona Water Conservation District, a local elected body that distributes our Colorado River throughout central Arizona.
CAWCD is now reaching beyond its proper role by attempting to intervene in the interstate Colorado River negotiations.
These interstate negotiations are the exclusive job of the Department of Water Resources, whose director is appointed by the governor to represent all Arizonans.
The ongoing conflict between the two agencies is more than a routine bureaucratic squabble. It has deadlocked legislative attempts at ratificatiated
tion of the DCP and jeopardizes our ability to negotiate effectively with surrounding Basin states.
The second threat to legislative ratification of the DCP comes from the Maricopa Stanfield Irrigation and Drainage District, the Central Arizona Irrigation District and several other agricultural districts located in Pinal County.
In 2004, these Pinal districts signed onto a far-reaching water settlement agreement worked out under the leadership of Sen. Jon Kyl. In that settlement the districts agreed that their use of Colorado River water would be phased out not later than 2030, after which they would go back to full reliance on groundwater.
In exchange for giving up long-term rights to Colorado River water and pumping more local groundwater, the districts bargained for and received heavily subsidized Colorado River rates to be paid for by property taxes levied on landowners in Phoenix, Tucson and throughout central Arizona.
These subsidies to the districts have now mounted to more than $383 million. The structure of the various federal laws and regulations governing the use of Colorado River water further requires that in times of extreme shortage, the Pinal districts will be required to accelerate their phase-out of Colorado River water even earlier.
That day has now arrived. The Pinal districts are once again back in the Legislature claiming that this early phaseout threatens their livelihoods and will result in large areas of agriculture suddenly going out of production.
The Pinal demand was originally for another $100 million in property tax revenue to pay for Colorado River water that would be obtained from Phoenix, Tucson and Indian tribes that have permanent contracts for their share of Colorado River water and are opposed to giving up supplies upon which they rely.
That proposal has stalled, and there is now a convoluted scheme in circulation to subsidize the districts with water purchased elsewhere, with money for new infrastructure and by drawing down water previously saved in Lake Mead to stave off shortages. Taking water from another Lake Mead storage account is, of course, completely contrary to the goal of the Drought Contingency Plan.
Pinal County agriculture presently has the capacity to make the necessary transition sooner that it originally anticipated — without such extravagant public subsidies. The districts have historically relied on local pumped groundwater as a major source of irrigation water. They presently use about 50 percent groundwater for irrigation, and they can now manage to move to 100 percent.
As this controversy drags on in successive legislative sessions some are asking, “Why the urgency? Does it really matter that it goes unresolved?”
It matters a lot. If the Drought Contingency Plan is not ratified soon California and the other Basin states may decide to proceed without us. That could be the beginning of another Colorado River water war.
Arizona has blundered into Colorado River wars in the past, and we usually lose. We must not go that way again. It is up to the Legislature and Gov. Doug Ducey to promptly ratify the Drought Contingency Plan as negotiated by the Department of Water Resources.