Phoenix-area cities say they want answers about plans for a pool of water that’s stored underground as a backup during dry times on the Colorado River. City leaders say the Arizona Water Banking Authority is keeping them in the dark about how they might share that water, making it hard for cities to plan for a drier future. The Water Bank is holding a special meeting Tuesday morning to address some of those questions.
The Water Bank was created in 1996 to store excess Colorado River water underground. Many cities that take water from the Central Arizona Project — the 336-mile canal system that brings Colorado River water to the Valley — added water to that bank with the expectation that they could pull it back out if the Colorado River couldn’t provide enough water on the surface.
Now, the Colorado River is dry enough to cause shortages, and cities say the Water Bank isn’t telling them how much water they can expect to get back.
Policymakers that manage the Colorado River are scrambling to agree on plans for sharing water after the current rules expire in 2026. A draft of new rules from the federal government imposed huge cutbacks on the Central Arizona Project. The three states that make up the river’s Lower Basin — Arizona, California and Nevada — are trying to convince the federal government to adopt a counter proposal in which Arizona and its neighbors would voluntarily cut back on water use to avoid harsher, mandatory cuts from the federal government.
Warren Tenney directs the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association, which represents 10 Valley cities that account for more than half of the state’s population. He said the Water Bank’s statute requires it to allocate the water in the event of those cutbacks.
“There should be no question about this,” Tenney said. “This is the purpose of why the water was stored, so why is it even being questioned?”
Tenney said those cities — including Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa and Glendale — need to know what the Water Bank plans to do.
“We don't know how deep those cuts are going to go moving forward,” he said. “But we better at least have certainty that the credits that were stored on our behalf and paid for by our taxpayers, that we can access those and utilize them.”
AMWUA and some of its cities have been asking the Water Bank for more information going back years. Tenney said the Water Bank has shown a “reluctance” to respond while negotiations over the future of the Colorado River are still ongoing.
The seven states that use the river are in the middle of contentious talks, and may be on course for major lawsuits if they can’t agree.
Cynthia Campbell, former water resources management advisor for the city of Phoenix, said cities started to “make a bit of noise” about their desire for more information from the Water Bank as far back as 2017 or 2018, and are upset because they still don’t know how much water they might get, or how the water will be removed from the ground.
“This all plays into a real frustration on the part of the cities who are trying to be diligent and trying to plan for eventualities,” Campbell said, “Because they have real customers to serve, and they just don't feel like they're getting the level of cooperation that they would like to get from The Bank.”
Tuesday’s meeting, which is open to the public, will likely attempt to address some of those concerns.
