Ducey marks signing of drought plan
Gov. Doug Ducey held a ceremonial signing of the state’s Drought Contingency Plan before delivering his Yuma-tailored version of the State of the State speech Thursday.
Ducey had local stakeholders from the public and private sectors stand behind him as he signed a copy of the enabling legislation for the plan, which was officially done one week earlier, Jan 31.
Calling the plan an “historic bipartisan achievement,” he said the legislation was made possible through “collaboration and compromise, which doesn’t happen too often in today’s politics.”
He continued, “I want to thank all of Yuma’s leaders for their partnership on this, but especially I
want to thank the bipartisan sponsors of the legislation, Senators Lisa Otondo and Sine Kerr, and Representative Tim Dunn, and Mark Smith, Wade Noble, and the Yuma agricultural community.”
After signing, he handed the pen over to Noble, who sat on the Drought Contingency Plan steering committee, representing Yuma along with Otondo. A longtime advocate for the area’s agricultural water rights, he said he was a little “embarrassed” by the attention but grateful.
“I’m in it for the team,” he said. Noble has been practicing law in Yuma since 1978.
He said his goal of the moment, and really for most of his career, has been to protect Yuma County’s rights to river water from urban water agencies seeking more water for expanding populations.
“Especially since Yuma County, especially agriculture and the city of Yuma, have such high-priority water, there are others in the state who do not have the same type of access, and they’d like to have the same priority,” he said.
Yuma irrigation districts and cities were among the first in the state to tap into the river, so they will be among the last to face mandatory cuts under the current plan.
Smith, a local farmer who has been president of the Yuma Irrigation District’s Board of Governors since 1994 and sits on several regional water boards, declined to comment about his inclusion in the governor’s remarks.
“You’ve got Wade, you’ve got the water area’s response right there, so that’s perfect,” he said.
Kerr, a Republican from Buckeye, was the only one of the three legislators who made it down to the ceremony during a busy day in session, while Democrat Otondo and the GOP’s Dunn, who are both from Yuma, were not present.
She flew in from Phoenix with Ducey on his private plane, which headed back immediately after the event. She said she did not know of any other plans to hold a ceremonial drought plan signing elsewhere in the state.
“I think it signifies, certainly, how Yuma is respected for their water leaders, and so I feel it was a very fitting gesture to have that ceremony, and I know it was greatly appreciated,” she said.
The Drought Contingency Plan, or DCP, is a series of agreements by the state and jurisdictions within, particularly Indian tribes and Pinal County agricultural users, to keep more of the water state users have the right to use in Lake Mead.
Sitting behind Hoover Dam, the lake surface’s elevation above sea level is used to determine whether a shortage is declared on the river and mandatory cuts are triggered.
The DCP is an effort by Arizona, California, Nevada and other Colorado River states to decide how they’re going to respond to a Tier 1 water shortage, expected as early as next year.
A shortage will be declared once the surface is at 1,075 feet. As of Thursday it was at 1,270 feet after what’s been a wet winter so far, but if it reaches 1,075 at any point this year, it will mean a shortage for 2020.
Ducey signed the plan into law hours before a Jan. 31 deadline set by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation expired, but BOR Commissioner Brenda Burman said the next day that neither Arizona or California had actually met that deadline because portions of their plans hadn’t been signed and sealed.
She announced BOR would open its own public comment period on the DCP March 4, signaling the feds were ready to intervene, but said it would be called off if both states had completed all of its agreements by then.
Noble said the DCP’s biggest roadblock is just across the river from Yuma. The Imperial Irrigation District has been holding out for a guaranteed $200 million in federal funds to address the shrinking Salton Sea, which threatens to send dangerous levels of dust into the atmosphere as it dries up.
The IID Board of Directors voted Tuesday to table the DCP rather than approving it, after calling a special meeting to vote on federal legislation that ended up not being available.
During a video of the meeting posted on the IID website, board member James Hanks read a statement before the vote. “For IID, the DCP is not just about water quantity, it’s about air quality,” since the area already has some of the nation’s highest rates for asthma and other respiratory disease.
Recently, thousands of birds who depend on the lake have died due to an avian cholera that is a result of conditions at the lake.
The Salton Sea is drying up because its sole source of water, agricultural runoff from the IID, is no longer flowing in as a result of a 2003 water transfer agreement between the district and the San Diego area, which meant less farming and less runoff.
Hanks said the district has been cooperative in efforts to conserve and transfer water, but a promised solution for the Salton Sea has never arrived. “However, cooperation and collaboration cannot continue to be a one-way street,” he said.
Noble said he’s unsure whether the impasse will be resolved in time, or what happens if it isn’t. But he said members of Arizona’s congressional delegation are ready to help push the enacting legislation through as quickly as possible.
Rep. Raul Grijalva, DTucson, is now chairman of the House’s Interior subcommittee, while Sen. Martha McSally, R-Arizona, is heading a subcommittee that would also hear the bill, while Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona, has also signaled her cooperation.
“I don’t think you’re going to see partisanship here, it has pretty good support,” he said.