If there’s one thing most Arizonans can agree upon, it’s that access to water and the future of water resources are the most important issues in the arid Grand Canyon State.
A megadrought and a warming climate has already reduced the supply of Colorado River water and that flow could be further threatened by cutbacks as federal officials negotiate allocations for the basin, set to expire in 18 months.
Arizona water managers met this week to discuss their options and educate the public about an uncertain future at what Central Arizona Project calls CAP University.
“Good morning and welcome to the C.A.P. University, June 24, Tuesday, June 24 edition. I’m Terry Goddard, and I’m privileged to be the president of the Central Arizona Project’s Board of Directors.”
Goddard opened the presentation. He’s the former mayor of Phoenix who also served eight years as Arizona’s attorney general.
Goddard represents Maricopa County and is serving his third term as C.A.P. board president, managing the 336-mile system that shuttles Colorado River water to the state’s most populous regions.
He–and other board members–are getting some difficult news from Rachel Van Engelhaven, one of the CAP policy planning analysts presenting their findings from a disappointing winter.
“Lake Powell’s unregulated inflow is expected to be 54% of average or 5.22 million acre feet. To put that in perspective, there have only been only six other years since the filling of Lake Powell that were lower than that,” Van Engelhaven tells attendees.
And it’s not because of low snowpack. This past winter saw 92% of average precipitation in the Colorado Rockies, which serves as the river’s watershed. But that 92% led to just 54% of average inflow to Lake Powell.
“So something is happening in the forest and it’s certainly not productive of additional water for the Colorado system,” Goddard said.
What’s happening is something called aridification, the process by which a region becomes increasingly dry.
Senior CAP Planning Analyst Nolie Templeton is a specialist on the topic. She says it’s due to rising temperatures.
“It increases evaporation rates, it increases evapo-transpiration rates. As snow falls with hotter temperatures, there will be more sublimation,” Templeton tells the board.
“Also hotter temperatures cause the atmosphere to be thirstier. All these processes combined, the water is going to go up in the air, rather than go into the river.”
For every 1 degree Celsius increase in temperatures, Templeton says there’s a 9% decrease in river flow.
And it’s not just a short-term trend.
“Our long-term 1922 full record natural average flow is actually about 14 and half million acre-feet. What we’ve observed over the past 20 years or so, is 12.4 million acres or so. And those are the numbers.”
That means flow is off more than 2 million acre-feet in the past two decades. An acre-foot is about enough to fill a football field 1 foot deep.
Fellow CAP Planning Analyst Josh Randall says conservation efforts have already been underway.
“In 2022, Arizona began conserving over 800,000 acre-feet a year. And by the end of 2025, Arizona is projected to save over 5.5 million acre-feet in Lake Mead, over 3 million acre-feet of that being voluntary.”
Randall says going forward, it’s all hands on deck when it comes to conservation.
“So I would say moving into the future. I think that’s something that we’ll see. I think it’s gonna be vital that all of the parts of Arizona are going to be included in the conversation on this problem, because I don’t see another way to address that.”
And there’s more uncertainty for the CAP system as important discussions continue on future allocations for the seven states and Mexico that share the dwindling supply of Colorado River water. Current rules expire at the end of 2026.
“The next two years are a little bit critical. If we don’t get a good snow pack this next year, we’re gonna be in a substantially different place than if we get a 2023 repeat year. And so that’s a little bit of what’s hard, is that we don’t really know where we’ll be starting from and what 2027 will require.”
Right now, Colorado River discussions appear deadlocked between the upper basin states, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming–and the lower-basin states, Arizona, Nevada and California.
Templeton says lower basin states have agreed to additional reductions of up to 1.5 million acre-feet if upper basin states agree to do the same. So far, she says those discussions haven’t moved forward with the director of Arizona’s Department of Water Resources Tom Buschatzke and CAP General Manager Brenda Burman.
“Anyone who benefits from this river needs to contribute to the sustainability of this river in to the future as we’re continuing to see drier times and potentially drier futures.”
Earlier this month in what could be good news for Arizona, former Central Arizona Project GM Ted Cooke was nominated to be the new head of the Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees Colorado River matters.
-
Entering the final year of her first term in office, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs called on state lawmakers to adopt a series of tax cuts that she says will benefit middle-class Arizonans. But those cuts don’t go far enough for the Republicans who control the state legislature. -
The proposals range from taking "no action" to a scenario that might result in water cuts to the lower basin states of California, Nevada and Arizona. One alternative developed in partnership with conservation groups would incentivize states and water users to proactively conserve the river. -
Tax cuts, affordability and data centers highlight Gov. Katie Hobbs’ agenda entering the final year of her first term in office as she prepares for a contentious reelection campaign. -
SRP senior hydrologist Stephen Flora said while the state is experiencing a mild La Niña weather pattern, the unpredictable climate in Arizona may bring unexpected conditions this winter. -
Environmental groups are sounding the alarm on various issues going into this year’s legislative session, and holding out hope for one area of potential bipartisanship.
