The Phoenix City Council is creating a new program to share water between Arizona cities. It’s an effort to help them endure water shortages, particularly looming potential cutbacks to the amount of water Arizona can use from the Colorado River.
The City Council on Wednesday voted unanimously to approve the program, the details of which were first announced in April. City water officials said they want to have some initial portions of the program running by Jan. 1, 2027.
The program, which will be run in partnership with Tucson, is called the Secure Water Arizona Program or SWAP.
“It's a practical program that will allow our state the flexibility to weather the uncertainties in the Colorado River Basin, and it reflects our commitment to one another,” said Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego.
SWAP is designed to be completely voluntary and is built around a few parts.
The first part is an emergency reserve of water. Max Wilson, Phoenix’s water resources management advisor, described it in a June presentation to city water officials from around the Valley. It’s a “small amount” that could be made available on a “very short-term” basis, so a city can keep taps flowing while working on a longer-term plan.
“The goal of the emergency reserve is to create some runway for us to solve problems if we run into them, not to create a moral hazard,” Wilson said. “Because if we set too much of a safety net under everybody, nobody's ever going to go out and buy any water, because they know that they can free ride onto the system.”
He said the emergency reserve was designed to last months, rather than years.
Other parts of SWAP are focused at longer-term fixes to water cutbacks. Through an “offset reduction program,” SWAP could help bring cities together to find new sources of water and account for the amount cut back. This could be done, for example, by negotiating an agreement with a farm district to pay for some of its water.
SWAP also aims to connect willing buyers of water to willing sellers, so cities in need of water know where to find cities that have water and are willing to let some go, for a price.
Wilson said the program is designed to be hands off with the cities that use it.
“The goal of this committee,” Wilson said, “Is to ensure that it has very limited authorities. We want these types of transactions to be occurring at that user-to-user level. There's a willing buyer and a willing seller.”
The program is partially aimed at protecting the Valley’s reputation. If even a small city in the area sees taps go dry, national headlines could bring negative attention to the entire Phoenix area. Cities like Phoenix and some of its relatively large neighbors appear willing to help their smaller neighbors in a pinch, because the negative press could damage their own economies.
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