Katie Hobbs and Andy Biggs — the Democrat and Republican nominees for governor— have wildly different plans for Arizona’s water future. To commemorate those lost in the 9/11 terror attacks 25 years ago, the North Valley Symphony Orchestra is partnering with North Valley Chorale in a special benefit concert. The Navajo Nation Council took a major step toward protecting one of its most precious water resources. Plus the latest education, science, water and Fronteras Desk news.
Transcript
TIARA VIAN: This is KJZZ, your news and information station in Phoenix and across Arizona. I’m Tiara Vian. And here are this week’s stories you don’t want to miss.
This is the podcast designed to catch you up on some highlights from around the region. Thanks so much for listening. Here are a few of the stories for the week of Sept. 7, 2026.
Katie Hobbs and Andy Biggs, the Democratic and Republican nominees for governor, have wildly different plans for Arizona’s water future. That means the choice voters make on ballots this November will point the state in one of two directions when it comes to managing Arizona’s water supply: conservation or augmentation. Camryn Sanchez reports.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Arizona governors have a key role in determining the state’s water future. The governor directs the State Department of Water Resources and represents state interests in ongoing negotiations over how big a piece Arizona gets from the Colorado River. The current two-year deal negotiated with the federal government will expire in 2028. With the fate of the Colorado River as a backdrop, both Hobbs and Biggs have made water a feature of their campaigns. As the incumbent, Hobbs hasn’t accomplished much on the subject legislatively. Water is one of a number of issues where she’s butted heads with the Republicans who control the state legislature. But in campaign ads airing on your television, Hobbs has touted directing her efforts to better manage Arizona’s water supplies through executive action.
AD: Saudi Arabia taking Arizona’s water. For decades, outsiders have been stealing our resources.
KATIE HOBBS: And those before me didn’t protect our water. So I tackled the problem.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: The ad references Fondomonte, a Saudi Arabian farming company that pumps rural Arizona groundwater to grow alfalfa. Early on in her four-year term as governor, Hobbs canceled some of Fondomonte’s land leases, which halted groundwater pumping in rural Butler Valley in western Arizona. In the past four years, she’s also vetoed several Republican bills and pushed for strategies to more stringently manage and conserve Arizona groundwater.
KATIE HOBBS: Doing our part on water conservation is how we can prove to the rest of the Colorado River users that we’re doing our part in conservation. And it gives us leverage in these negotiations. We can’t just keep relying on Colorado River water without conserving. We have to conserve. We have to do all of the above.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Conservation at times came at the expense of growth and development in parts of the Valley. When Hobbs first took office in 2023, she released a report from the state water agency warning that groundwater levels in parts of the Phoenix metro area were dangerously low. Under her supervision, the Department of Water Resources effectively blocked new home construction in the West Valley suburbs by determining the water levels were too strained to issue certificates of a 100-year assured water supply.
KATIE HOBBS: I am not interested in relaxing our state’s groundwater protection. I mean, we have some of the strongest groundwater protection in the country with a 100-year assured water supply.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Republicans like Biggs took issue with Hobbs’ home-building moratorium by accusing the governor of being anti-business and development. Those same Republicans praised a court ruling earlier this year that the state water agency acted illegally when it restricted home building. While Hobbs has pushed for conserving groundwater, Biggs argues that management, not availability, is the issue, and that Arizona should ramp up the infrastructure to pump even more from the state’s aquifers.
ANDY BIGGS: I know people say, “Well, maybe we should use less groundwater.” That’s not going to help us. We’ve got a massive supply of groundwater. We just aren’t able to pull it out, and we aren’t able to really actually use it and get it where it needs to be.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: On the campaign trail, Biggs also touts the need to augment the state’s water supply, specifically with plans to desalinate ocean water — an idea that was spearheaded by Arizona’s last Republican governor, Doug Ducey. As governor, Biggs says he’ll reopen a shuttered desalination plant in Yuma, hopefully with the help of federal funding. The Yuma desalting plant was built in 1992 and is designed to purify salty agricultural runoff.
ANDY BIGGS: When I talked to the Bureau of Reclamation, they told me that we should apply for a grant, and we think it’s going to be pretty expensive, but there is some money there if we can get that grant. We could actually get the desalting facility up and running.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Biggs has generally spoken against the conservation efforts pushed by Hobbs, vowing to take a new direction if elected.
ANDY BIGGS: No, I don’t think it means we need more conservation laws. I think it means we need more understanding of the hydrology of it, but also we’re going to need to have a more accurate measure. So I don’t think you need new laws to do that thing — to do those two things.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Hobbs vehemently disagrees.
KATIE HOBBS: What good are the studies if we’re not going to use the data in the studies? That’s — it’s a nonsensical solution. I mean, it’s saying you’re doing something without really doing something, and undermining the really strong protection that we have that’s allowed us to continue to grow.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: She says the state needs to adjust water protections based on what the current available scientific data shows. Camryn Sanchez, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In Fronteras news, it’s been about 200 years since bison roamed in the Mexican state of Sonora. From the Fronteras Desk, Nina Kravinksy reports on an effort to change that, and how one organization is working to rewild its patch of borderlands.
NINA KRAVINSKY: A penned herd of American bison grunt and shuffle after a recent vet check. Their dark eyes peer out from the shaggy black hair around their massive faces.
PETER WINDSOR: There’s a little baby over there, which is not so little anymore. They grow fast.
NINA KRAVINSKY: The calves, now a few months old, have tiny, pointed horns — like miniature versions of the adults’ stately, curved ones. They were born here on the Cuenca Los Ojos Nature Preserve, where Peter Windsor is the conservation director. They became the first wild bison born in the Mexican state of Sonora in about two centuries. Soon, they and the rest of the herd are set to be released from their mandatory quarantine and will be able to range free on around 10,000 acres.
This is the Sky Islands region, stretching from where Sonora meets Chihuahua to the south, and Arizona meets New Mexico to the north — deserts, grasslands, and complex mountain ranges flow into one another to become one of the most ecologically diverse places on Earth.
PETER WINDSOR: The vision we have is that bison will roam here and do whatever they want to do. And there’ll be prairie dogs, and there’ll be pronghorn and elk, and there’ll be anything else that has an ecological function here that used to be here that were removed mostly by habitat destruction and human hunting.
NINA KRAVINSKY: The reintroduction of those species is part of the binational nonprofit’s vision to restore its more than 120,000 acres just south of the U.S.-Mexico border. Bison do a lot for the ecosystem. As they roam long distances, they carry seeds in their dung and hair. Their uneven grazing creates habitats for birds and small mammals in the grasslands. And when they die, their carcasses provide protein for scavengers and the soil.
CURTIS FREESE: So that’s all part of this longer, kind of big vision of bringing back a kind of a self-sustaining ecosystem that requires minimal human intervention to keep it going.
NINA KRAVINSKY: Curtis Freese is a conservation biologist and co-founder of American Prairie, a nonprofit nature reserve in Montana which reintroduced bison several years ago. He consults Cuenca Los Ojos on their bison reintroduction.
CURTIS FREESE: And so you got this whole chain of wildland and rewilding ideas underway, and all of them depend on big, intact areas that get connected with each other one way or the other.
NINA KRAVINSKY: As we talk, Freese and Windsor are dwarfed by the towering, rust-red border wall behind them. The U.S.-Mexico line makes up the northern border of Cuenca Los Ojos. Windsor and I hurtle east down the Sonoran highway, parallel to the snaking border wall.
PETER WINDSOR: You can look to your left here, and they’re like big mountain ranges in the way—way back there that are kind of hazy blue. That’s still Cuenca. And the next mountain range over, it’s still Cuenca. So it — it sort of — it goes and goes.
NINA KRAVINSKY: Hills begin to rise around us, and we move out of the lower grasslands and into the mountains. Jagged rock formations punctuate the rugged terrain.
PETER WINDSOR: When I look at this, I’m thinking about cats.
NINA KRAVINSKY: It’s an ideal habitat for the many species of wild cats that roam this land, like pumas, ocelots, and bobcats. Cuenca Los Ojos has also captured images of jaguars on wildlife cameras. Recent ones indicate this area could be the northernmost breeding population of the elusive, almost mythical felines. The biggest cat species in the Americas needs vast tracts of uninterrupted land to roam. But the lengthening border wall is increasingly threatening their ability to move here. From the highway, gashes of cleared land are visible deep in the mountains, where construction workers are making way for more border wall.
Deep in a valley, a spring-fed stream gurgles year-round, shaded by giant sycamores and cottonwood trees.
PETER WINDSOR: Jaguars are coming up here on their own and finding an habitat that suitable is due to the water availability and the — and the vegetation.
NINA KRAVINSKY: Back by the bison and the border wall, grasses made tall by recent monsoons grow past our knees. Cuenca Los Ojos’ new bison herd ambles in their pen, preparing to do what generations before them have done: roam. The red wall, looming in the distance, will be their northern border. Nina Kravinsky, KJZZ News, San Bernardino, Sonora.
TIARA VIAN: And this is the Stories You Don’t Want to Miss podcast. Every Wednesday, KJZZ offers up Hotspots to spice up your weekend. It’s delivered right to your phone. Try something new or step out of the routine. Just visit hotspots.kjzz.org to sign up.
In arts news, to commemorate those lost in the 9/11 terror attacks 25 years ago, the North Valley Symphony Orchestra is partnering with North Valley Chorale in a special benefit concert. Jill Ryan has more.
JILL RYAN: The musicians and singers gather at Shiloh Community Church in North Phoenix to rehearse for their concert titled “America Remembers.”
KEVIN KOZAK: I think it was a huge turning point in America, and we need to remember what it did to us.
JILL RYAN: That’s head of the symphony orchestra and event co-conductor Kevin Kozak.
KEVIN KOZAK: I was an airline pilot at the time, and I was flying for Southwest Airlines. And I was just about ready to go to work when my wife called me into the kitchen and said, “Kevin, you need to see this.” And I was watching the tower, the second tower fall.
JILL RYAN: Kozak said the aftermath of 9/11’s effect on U.S. soldiers is why the net proceeds from the show will go toward the Phoenix chapter of US Vets.
KEVIN KOZAK: And they really focus on veterans who are struggling with homelessness and PTSD and being able to get back on their feet.
JILL RYAN: Many of the performers have connections to that day, including Suzanne Johnson, who plays the oboe and English horn.
SUZANNE JOHNSON: You know, 25 years since 9/11 ... it’s a very momentous occasion. And it’s really good that we’re able to do something to put our feelings into this.
JILL RYAN: In 2001, she was out of the country on a cruise when the terrorist attack happened.
SUZANNE JOHNSON: We couldn’t reach anybody in the United States to make sure they were safe, and to tell them that we were safe. And then there was some debate on what to do with the cruise, but, you know, we had no reason to turn back. We couldn’t go home because the airplanes were down.
ELEANOR JOHNSON: My husband worked for American Express in those days, and he used to be at the next door building. And it was just a miracle of God that he wasn’t there that week.
JILL RYAN: ELEANOR JOHNSON is the head of the North Valley Chorale and co-conductor of the event.
ELEANOR JOHNSON: It really was impactful. People he worked with in—in New York, you know, were killed. It was — you can’t believe it, you know?
JILL RYAN: She says she selected songs that represent mourning rather than patriotism for the event.
ELEANOR JOHNSON: I feel that sometimes people don’t actually take the time to grieve.
JILL RYAN: The concert “America Remembers” will take place this Sunday, Sept. 13 at 3:00 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church of Phoenix. Jill Ryan, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In science news, El Niño is a climate pattern that results from when the Pacific Ocean near the equator is hotter than usual. As Greg Hahne reports, UA researchers studying coral determined that El Niño has grown more extreme in recent decades than in the previous thousand years.
GREG HAHNE: The hot Pacific Ocean during El Niño causes drier areas like Arizona to see more precipitation in the winter months, but there have been gaps in understanding broader global trends over time.
DIANE THOMPSON: We have for a long time struggled to understand how it might change in response to a changing climate.
GREG HAHNE: Diane Thompson is a UA professor and study author. She says researchers were able to track temperature changes by examining the chemical makeup of modern and ancient coral skeletons. They found El Niño has grown about 40% stronger than the pre-industrial era.
DIANE THOMPSON: These really exceptional, big El Niño events like we’re seeing this year are likely to become more common according to our findings.
GREG HAHNE: Thompson says tracking the changing trends will help in understanding how the more intense weather patterns could impact communities. Greg Hahne, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In education news, the Department of Energy has awarded $20 million to the University of Arizona to expand and modernize the San Xavier Mine for student research and collaboration with industries. Taylor Griffith has more.
TAYLOR GRIFFITH: The San Xavier Mine in Sahuarita, Arizona, produced silver, lead, zinc, and copper for around 70 years. In 1975, the University of Arizona bought it to support mining research and education. James Werner is the director of the San Xavier Mine. He says major companies like Komatsu and Resolution Copper use it to test new technologies that would be hard to do in an active mine.
JAMES WERNER: The last six or seven or so years, we really tried to broaden how we use the place. So we started to get a lot more industry partners and things like that, giving them an alternative to test their equipment and technology at a non-producing facility.
TAYLOR GRIFFITH: Around 50 graduate students also need the space to problem-solve a broad range of industry challenges. Taylor Griffith, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: And this is the Stories You Don’t Want to Miss podcast.
In tribal natural resources, the Navajo Nation Council took a major step toward protecting one of its most precious water resources. Gabriel Pietrorazio has more on the measure that formally recognizes the confluence where the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers meet as a sacred site under tribal law.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Doing so formally documents what Navahos already know: the spiritual and natural significance of where these two life-giving rivers converge. This information may be used to potentially deter future commercial development by industries like hydropower or dams.
ERIC STANSFIELD: When that comes forward, we can show what impairment of those resources look like.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: That’s Eric Stansfield, testifying on behalf of the tribe’s Historic Preservation Office. He likens the confluence to its council chambers.
ERIC STANSFIELD: Just the same way as, again, like the murals in this room, changing that would be an impairment to the sort of historical, cultural importance of this place.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Gabriel Pietrorazio, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In water news, officials in Tucson say a recently completed treatment project will assist in the city’s efforts to remove PFAS from groundwater. Alisa Reznick reports the human-made chemicals have been tied to health issues, including cancer.
ALISA REZNICK: One way groundwater is contaminated with PFAS is through a firefighting foam containing the chemicals that’s commonly used at airports and military installations, like the ones in Tucson’s Southside. The area was declared a Superfund site by the EPA in the 1980s because of another contaminant called TCE. Tucson Water Director John Kmiec says the treatment plant established to clean up TCE was also cleaning PFAS, but not very efficiently.
JOHN KMIEC: What we built was another treatment process to add into that treatment train. So all water coming from the TARP wellfield for the Superfund site that the city manages would now go through PFAS treatment first.
ALISA REZNICK: Kmiec says the water is not currently being used for drinking water, but it’s being cleaned to meet those standards and could be used one day. Alisa Reznick, KJZZ News, Tucson.
TIARA VIAN: And finally, in original productions, for a deeper dive on important topics around the state, KJZZ’s The Show is looking at the controversy around fake photos posted of an Arizona lawmaker and the legal issues around it. Here’s co-host Lauren Gilger.
LAUREN GILGER: Mesa Democrat Lorena Austin is the first nonbinary, Chicana legislator in the country. They are an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. They support housing reform, access to higher education, funding free school lunches, and more progressive causes. And according to some conservative political activists, they are supporting Republican Andy Biggs for governor. Turning Point activists Mary Ann Mendoza and Matt Whitmire posted images on social media over the weekend showing Rep. Austin putting up campaign sign that reads “Democrats for Biggs” and thanking them for their support of the conservative Republican gubernatorial nominee. Well, it didn’t take long for folks to start questioning those images, and our own Wayne Schutsky ran them through an AI detector and found they’re deepfakes. He joins me now with more. Good morning, Wayne.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Good morning.
LAUREN GILGER: OK, so this seemed a little fishy from the start, Wayne. What did you notice about these images that seemed a little off?
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Well, right away I was kind of questioning the images, not just because I don’t care how progressive or moderate a lawmaker is down at the legislature, all the Democrats are pretty lined up behind Gov. Katie Hobbs. So that was the first kind of tick off. But then also, I’ve seen Rep. Austin a lot down at the legislature, and something like her tattoos didn’t match the individual or fake individual in this photo that was supposedly them. So those were just kind of alarm bells. So like you mentioned, I ran it through Deepfake Detector, which is one of these platforms that you run these images through and they try and detect — they look for telltale signs that they were created by AI. And they’re not foolproof, but a lot of studies have shown that with photos, they’re pretty accurate, and it gave it a 100% rating as created by AI.
LAUREN GILGER: Wow. OK, so you reached out to Rep. Austin, and they confirmed they never posted, never posed for these photos. What was their response?
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Kind of bewildered. They just thought it was kind of odd. But then basically Rep/ Austin just said that it appeared to be an example of an issue that the Biggs campaign is having, which is, you know, trying to appeal to moderates and independents, which polling has shown Governor Hobbs is having more success with. So they said maybe they turned to one of the more progressive legislators in the legislature to try and help them with that.
LAUREN GILGER: Right, so that’s another question here. Like, is it odd, Wayne, that they chose this particular representative to include in this deepfake? Like, they are one of the most progressive lawmakers at the Capitol.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah, I mean, from a political perspective, it is. I mean, Rep. Austin has been very outspoken, you know, anti-the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown or, you know, so something like that, for instance, which Congressman Biggs has been very supportive of, you know, it’s just very obvious that this person didn’t align. Some of it could just be geography. They chose the legislator in their area. You know, Mary Ann Mendoza has run in this district or this community before, and Matt Whitmire has worked on some campaigns in the East Valley before, so could have just been they picked the Democrat closest to them.
LAUREN GILGER: Tell us more about about these two conservative activists here.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: So one of them, Mary Ann Mendoza, she’s run for office before unsuccessfully for the Legislature. Some folks might remember her name because she was actually pulled off of the speaking slot at the RNC back in 2020 after she shared some anti-Semitic, QAnon-related type posts on on Twitter. So that kind of is where her name has come up in the past. She is the mother of a police officer who was killed in a car accident with an undocumented immigrant, and that’s kind of why she was had that speaking slot in the first place. Matt Whitmire, there’s not as much more information about him, but he has posted quite a bit about doing work with Turning Point on various political campaigns, including that kind of failed effort to take over the SRP board earlier this year.
LAUREN GILGER: Those posts have been deleted since. Has Turning Point had anything to say about this, Wayne?
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Turning Point and Mary Ann Mendoza, neither of them responded to me. I know that Mendoza did give a statement to the Arizona Republic basically saying, “Oh, it was all a joke and journalists don’t get it.” But, I mean, there are bigger ramifications here potentially beyond being a joke, so.
LAUREN GILGER: What about the Biggs campaign? Any comment there?
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Basically just saying, “This had nothing to do with us.” Pretty short and sweet.
LAUREN GILGER: Right. I mean, but this comes, Wayne, as the Biggs campaign is not looking at very good numbers. The polling right now shows that he’s trailing Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs quite a bit.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah, I mean, it comes as you’ve seen Katie Hobbs, which she had in her last campaign as well, roll out a Republicans for Hobbs slate of very real people, you know, a lot of former elected officials. And like obviously her lieutenant governor candidate is a former Republican himself. So, yeah, so it looked like maybe an opportunity to try and do something for the Biggs campaign along the same lines. But again, the campaign says it had nothing to do with it, and it looks like these are Turning Point-affiliated people. There are some of these signs out there that appear to have been paid for by Turning Point’s PAC, so it does seem like this is a Turning Point-centric effort.
LAUREN GILGER: Wayne, is this legal, posting deepfake AI images like this?
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: So we have a few laws passed in 2024 that were meant to crack down on this type of thing. And so, yeah, so legal, they’re kind of more civil penalties, but one would give Rep. Austin the opportunity to go to court and basically get a judgment where a judge would declare officially that this is not Rep. Austin, and then they could use that on campaign stuff. It’s supposed to stop this type of activity within 90 days of an election. And then there’s a separate law that if someone does this type of activity campaign-related, they could incur a fine of basically $10 a day for as long as they leave it up. So there’s a few different laws looking at this.
LAUREN GILGER: Okay, so potential action there. How common, though, could this become, or is this now, Wayne? Should we expect AI to play a role, AI images like this, deepfakes like this, to pop up in politics and in campaigns more in the future?
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Oh, 100%. I mean, we’ve seen it throughout the campaign season in commercials and things like that. The difference is is those are disclosed, right? And so that it’s so — but we’ve seen candidates even using it to put their opponents into their ads and things like that. And as far as the fake stuff, I mean, going all the way back to ’24 when these laws were passed, if my memory serves, it was done in response to this nationwide issue where there were these robocalls supposedly from former President Biden that I think were telling like trying to encourage New Hampshire voters not to go to the polls. So I think that was one of the impetuses for one of these laws. So I think, yeah, as AI just becomes more and more advanced and harder to detect, I would imagine we’ll continue seeing this type of thing.
LAUREN GILGER: All right, lots to watch for. KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky joining us from our Politics Desk. Wayne, thanks so much.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah, thank you.
TIARA VIAN: And this has been the Stories You Don’t Want to Miss podcast. It’s made possible in part by the Catena Foundation, BASIS Charter Schools, Palo Verde Generating Station, SRP, and the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. Thank you for listening and for your generous support. I’m Tiara Vian. This is KJZZ. Listen more, learn more online and on the KJZZ mobile app.
