State’s drought plan in focus
Water groups to co-host briefing event in Tempe
The Arizona Department of Water Resources will hold a statewide briefing about the Drought Contingency Plan for the lower Colorado River basin June 28.
The keynote speaker will be Commissioner Brenda Burman of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, appointed in February to lead the BOR as the probability grows of a shortage declaration on Lake Mead, which the bureau oversees.
The meeting will be cohosted by the ADWR and Central Arizona Project, which supplies most of the water for the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas. The two agencies have been at odds over water policy, but have pledged to work together on the regional plan.
The session will be livestreamed 1-4 p.m. July 28 from the Arizona Historical Society Museum, 1300 N. College Avenue, Tempe. Details on the livestream will be available at azwater.gov or centralarizonaproject.com.
ADWR spokesman Doug MacEachern said of Burman, “The commissioner has taken a very active role in pushing DCP across the finish line, and we expect she will take this opportunity to once again urge for its completion.
“So it will be an excellent opportunity for Arizona’s most influential Colorado River water provider to join with ADWR in urging for completion of the drought contingency plan.”
Those watching the livestream will not be able to provide input into the briefing, he said, but there will be some opportunity for those attending to do so.
The Drought Contingency Plan is an agreement under which various entities in Arizona, California and Nevada who get water from the Colorado River system would take agreed-upon steps to conserve water so it can stay in Lake Mead.
Lake Mead’s elevation determines whether a shortage will be declared. As of June 14, it is three feet above the 1,075-foot level, and water supplies to Arizona will be cut if the surface level dips below that, beginning with CAP agriculture under a pact reached in 2007.
The briefing is expected to kick off discussion throughout Arizona over the state’s role in the contingency plan. The upper basin states of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming have been negotiating their own plan, but talks on both have fallen off, according to a presentation Burman gave at the Imperial Irrigation and Drainage District last month.