This is not an example of state doing water right

Around these parts, you frequently hear the claim that water is something that Arizona does right.

After the Legislature passed two measures related to the interstate Drought Contingency Plan, there was a hardy round of self-congratulations. Another example of Arizona doing water right. Comparisons to the landmark Groundwater Act of 1980 filled the air.

However, the state implementation plan for the DCP isn’t an example of Arizona doing water right. In fact, it sets some very bad precedents which will become obstacles to truly doing water right, as Arizona has to make due with less water from the Colorado River. But first, some fed bashing.

The Legislature acted in haste to meet a federal deadline of Jan. 31 to approve the interstate agreement. In the signing ceremony there might as well have been

a “Mission Accomplished” banner.

The self-congratulatory bubble was quickly burst when Brenda Burman, commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, said that Arizona hadn’t, in fact, met the deadline. The state implementation plan includes agreements between intrastate parties that haven’t been finalized. Until that is done, Arizona hasn’t really met the federal requirement.

To be blunt, that’s nonsense.

As part of the interstate Drought Contingency Plan, Arizona agrees to steeper reductions in what it takes from the Colorado River as water levels in Lake Mead drop to certain points. The Legislature authorized the state to sign that plan.

Those additional cuts are what protect the river and Lake Mead. What Arizona does as a result of receiving less Colorado River water should be none of the federal government’s business.

The authorization to sign up for the steeper cuts isn’t, as a matter of state law, contingent upon these intrastate agreements being finalized, although the votes were obtained with the expectation that they would be. Nor should federal recognition that Arizona has agreed to the interstate Drought Contingency Plan be contingent on their finalization.

I don’t know if anyone is making the point to the Department of Interior and the Trump administration that these intrastate deals should be none of the federal government’s business, or providing some political push back. That’s certainly not occurring publicly. And Arizona’s congressional delegation is perhaps too green on these issues to be so employed.

But the state’s being done wrong nonetheless.

That said, the state implementation plan, and the lingering intrastate deals, are nothing to brag about.

Arizona needs to get on with living with less Colorado River water and less water generally. Yet there is very little in the implementation plan that results in anyone consuming less water.

Instead, the precedent was set that parties are to receive mitigation or cash for forgoing Central Arizona Project water, even water that probably wouldn’t have been available anyway.

CAP water in Arizona is prioritized. If there is less of it, low-priority users are to be cut off.

Lake Mead is expected to drop to one of its cut points in the next year or two. If that happened, a small number of farmers in Pinal County would have lost their CAP allocation.

Instead, the implementation plan promises them CAP water for another few years. They also get a state general fund appropriation and a redirection of groundwater withdrawal fees to construct groundwater wells and distribution systems.

An Indian tribe will get millions from the Central Arizona Water Conservation District, which administers the CAP, to forgo low-priority water that, if Lake Mead drops, it might not have gotten anyway.

Another tribe gets a state appropriation to leave high-priority water behind Lake Mead. That expenditure might be defensible. But the funds should come from CAP water charges, not state sales and income taxes.

There is no meaningful conservation in the state implementation plan. And there will be none if everyone who is asked to use less water has to be paid off or mitigated.

Instead, all users of water should be required to pay more, regardless of priority or source of water. That’s the best, and perhaps only, way to reconcile an imbalance between supply and demand.

Until that, or some other mechanism for meaningful conservation, is in place, Arizona isn’t doing water right.