KJZZ is a service of Rio Salado College,
and Maricopa Community Colleges

Copyright © 2025 KJZZ/Rio Salado College/MCCCD
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Arizona water agency lost half its funding. Now some lawmakers want to restore it

Water storage at a West Valley farm in January 2025.
Chelsey Heath/KJZZ
Water storage at a West Valley farm in January 2025.

Some Arizona lawmakers want to restore funding to the state agency in charge of finding new sources of water a year after it faced major cuts.

Lawmakers and former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey initially allocated $1 billion dollars to the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority, or WIFA, in 2022. As part of the deal, they also expanded the once-obscure agency in order to secure new sources of water and conserve the state’s existing resources.

But the Legislature and Gov. Katie Hobbs slashed nearly $500 million of that funding in recent years as a part of across-the-board cuts to deal with a massive budget deficit.

Now, Rep. Gail Griffin (R-Hereford) wants lawmakers to restore that money.

Griffin’s HCR 2016 wouldn’t actually restore WIFA’s budget. Instead, it is a statement by lawmakers that they are committed to reinstating that money at some point in the future.

Griffin’s resolution passed through the House Natural Resources, Energy & Water Committee with bipartisan support, though Democrats like Rep. Sarah Liguor (D-Phoenix) said the state also needs to focus on funding for water conservation.

“We are in a precarious situation because of fiscal irresponsibility of the state that we now have to pick and choose which important pieces we’re able to fully fund in regards to water and environmental concerns, of which are the utmost importance to like every single person in this state,” said Liguori, who successfully pushed lawmakers to include $200 million for conservation projects in the original WIFA allocation in 2022.

Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon chapter, said there are also concerns about WIFA’s transparency that lawmakers should address before they give the agency more money. She pointed to a failed bill pushed last year that would have blocked the public from using the state’s Public Records law to obtain copies of WIFA’s communications and negotiations with entities seeking WIFA funding.

Liguori shared those concerns, though she ultimately voted in favor of Griffin’s resolution.

“You know, certain vendors and certain projects that were being pushed without really the Legislature having any sort of awareness or say into it,” Liguori said, referencing a proposed project that would have used much of WIFA’s funding to help secure financing for a plant in Mexico that could pump desalinated ocean water to Arizona.

The project never got off the ground despite support from Ducey and suggestions from Democratic lawmakers that the former Republican governor’s administration was already working on the project with stakeholders before lawmakers approved WIFA’s $1 billion expansion, according to the Arizona Capitol Times.

Griffin had no concerns about how the proposed desalination project played out.

“I'll just state that there was a proposal, it was not accepted,” she said. “People are free to make proposals and the WIFA board saw that it was not time to do that project and they didn't have all the information.”

Griffin said she just wants to see WIFA’s funding restored when the state has the money to do so.

More water news

Wayne Schutsky is a broadcast field correspondent covering Arizona politics on KJZZ. He has over a decade of experience as a journalist reporting on local communities in Arizona and the state Capitol.