The Show for Aug. 31, 2026: Arizona's top water official, in-state tuition for 'Dreamers' and more

Arizona is planning for cuts to its Colorado River water after federal rules came out this month. The state’s lead water negotiator on what comes next. Plus, how advocates for “Dreamers” plan to defend against a new lawsuit from the Justice Department over in-state tuition.

Transcript

ANNOUNCER: KJZZ’s original production The Show is supported by Banner Health, Arizona’s largest nonprofit healthcare system. Last year, Banner reinvested more than $1.1 billion in community health and charity care. Banner Health: Nonprofit for Arizona. bannerhealth.com/nonprofit4az.

MARK BRODIE: Hi, I’m Mark Brodie, co-host of The Show, an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday, we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at theshow.kjzz.org. Here’s today’s episode.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, why some Arizonans may have to request to stay on the active early voting list, and Arizona’s lead water negotiator on what comes next after the Feds released new rules for the Colorado River.

But first, the U.S. Justice Department has sued Arizona over a voter-approved law that allows Dreamers — people brought to this country as young children — to get in-state tuition at public colleges and universities.

Under Prop. 308, which Arizona voters OK’d in 2022, undocumented students are eligible for in-state tuition if they’ve graduated from a high school in the state after having attended for at least two years.

In filing the complaint against Arizona and three other states, an assistant attorney general said, “This is a simple matter of federal law. Colleges cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens. This Department of Justice will not tolerate American students being treated like second-class citizens in their own country.”

Joining me now to talk about this is Reyna Montoya, founder and CEO of the group Aliento, which serves Dreamers and immigrant families. Reyna, good morning.

REYNA MONTOYA: Good morning, Mark. Good to talk to you.

MARK BRODIE: Likewise. So, were you surprised that DOJ filed this lawsuit against Arizona and those other states?

REYNA MONTOYA: Sadly, I was not surprised, as they have been suing multiple states with these claims that are inaccurate and that Arizona law is completely consistent with federal law.

MARK BRODIE: Do we have a sense of how many students are getting in-state tuition at community colleges or the public universities who are in the Dreamer population?

REYNA MONTOYA: There are rough estimates about anywhere between two to 3,000 students, but we don’t have exact data, as that’s something that universities don’t ask for immigration status.

MARK BRODIE: OK. So, we’re not talking in the universe of university and college students, we’re not talking a huge number of students here?

REYNA MONTOYA: Not significantly.

MARK BRODIE: So, what have you heard from some of the folks with whom you work, maybe some of their students who are either getting in-state tuition or thinking about, maybe they’re in high school now and thinking about what they’re going to do next? Since this lawsuit was filed late last week, what have you heard from folks?

REYNA MONTOYA: Yes, definitely there’s a lot of confusion. Many of them, the first question was, "Can I still continue to go to my education? Can I still continue to pay in-state tuition?" So, definitely there was a lot of fear and a lot of confusion and discouragement from students. So, that’s been the majority of the questions that we’ve been asked. And something that I always tell them is that a lawsuit doesn’t mean that the law has changed. So, it’s really critical for them to understand that they can still pay in-state tuition as of now.

MARK BRODIE: Are you concerned about a potential chilling effect that, for all the folks who reach out to you, that there are some number who don’t, who just see this and think, "Oh, well, I guess I can’t get in-state tuition anymore"?

REYNA MONTOYA: This is a new law for us. I mean, this was passed by Arizona voters in 2022. So, already there was some confusion whether they were able to apply or not. And with this, seeing that the administration is consistently trying to go after schools, after kids who are just trying to get an education, definitely is going to have an impact. So, that’s why it’s really critical that we’re having a conversation about this issue so students can continue their higher education.

MARK BRODIE: So, you mentioned that, at least in your interpretation, and I believe that of the Attorney General of Arizona as well, that the state law, Prop 308, is not inconsistent with federal law. Can you sort of give us a rundown of how that is?

REYNA MONTOYA: Yeah, a little bit of background is that in 1996, the federal government delegated the power to the states to identify the classification for in-state tuition for undocumented students, and Prop 308 did that. It is consistent with federal law because, one, it is not basing technically having in-state tuition based on residency, and it’s affirming that undocumented students qualify for this. And Prop 308 tackles those matters, so that’s why I believe it’s consistent with federal law. The other thing that I think is a big misconception that I think is really trying to misinform a lot of voters across the United States is that this gives a leg up to undocumented students. That is inaccurate. Prop 308 in-state tuition allows any student, as long as they meet those qualifiers that they have gone to a two-year here in an Arizona high school, they would be able to have in-state tuition. So, in reality, any student that actually comes back regardless of their immigration status to Arizona, as long as they fit this criteria, they’re going to be able to get in-state tuition.

MARK BRODIE: So, you’re saying that U.S. citizens, for example, who attend an Arizona high school for two years, graduate from that high school, even if they’re not necessarily from here or spent their first two years in high school in Arizona, they would also still be eligible for in-state tuition?

REYNA MONTOYA: Correct. Let’s say that there’s a U.S. citizen whose parents moved to California because of employment, and they came back the junior year. So, as long as they qualify for those two years, they’re still going to be able to get in-state tuition as long as they meet that criteria.

MARK BRODIE: So, for your group, what do you do now? How do you try to defend against this lawsuit to the extent that you are involved in that?

REYNA MONTOYA: Yes, for now, I think our biggest priority is to ensure that students, counselors, and educators know that Prop 308 is still the law of the state of Arizona and that they’re able to give the proper orientation and the proper information to students. So, for me, as I’m having this conversation with students, the best way that they can fight back is to get good grades and get an education, because that’s what this lawsuit is intending to do right in the meantime, is trying to confuse people and making sure that they don’t enroll to college. On the other side, we are monitoring this lawsuit pretty closely. We’re going to continue not only to raise awareness, but weighing our possibilities about how we as an organization would be getting involved, as this deeply impacts not only the organization, but a lot of the students that we serve. We actually have a scholarship that supports students to go back to school.

MARK BRODIE: Obviously, this lawsuit is pretty new, but the Justice Department has filed suits against other states. And understanding that every state’s law is a little bit different and unique to itself, I’m wondering if you’ve been in touch with any of your folks who do the kind of work that you do in states that have already been sued by the Justice Department to sort of get a sense of maybe how those cases have proceeded, maybe get a sense of what to expect here?

REYNA MONTOYA: Definitely. We have been in conversations with a lot of our partners in higher education that have been impacted by this. And as you said, though, every state is a little bit different, so every law should be judged on its merits. And I have no doubt in my heart that Prop 308 will continue to be the law of the state of Arizona.

MARK BRODIE: All right. That is Reyna Montoya, founder and CEO of the group Aliento. Reyna, thank you so much.

REYNA MONTOYA: Thank you so much, Mark.

MARK BRODIE: Some Arizonans will be at risk for being removed from the active early voting list starting in January. That’s because of a 2021 law signed by then-Governor Doug Ducey. Under that law, voters who do not cast their mail-in ballot in federal, state, or city elections over four years — two election cycles — have to specify that they want to continue to get those ballots. Joining me now to talk more about this, including how many voters could potentially be affected, is Sasha Hupka of Votebeat, who’s written about this. Good morning, Sasha.

SASHA HUPKA: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MARK BRODIE: Thank you for being here. So, let’s go back to the origins of this situation, which is this law that basically says if you are on what used to be called the Permanent Early Voting List — it’s now called the Active Early Voting List — and you do not cast a ballot over four years, you may, but are not necessarily, removed from that list. Is that right?

SASHA HUPKA: Yeah. So, we’re looking at a law that was passed in 2021. It was sort of the aftermath of the 2020 election, which obviously there were a ton of conspiracies and misinformation around. At the time, former President Donald Trump was claiming that that election had been stolen from him; that was not the case.

And so, you came into this legislative session with Republicans in the state Legislature who really wanted to do things to change Arizona’s election laws and election policies. And so, this law sort of emerged from that.

The synopsis of it is that if you are on the early voting list — so the list in Arizona that allows you to automatically get a mail ballot — you have to use that mail ballot to vote in at least one election over the course of two election cycles or a four-year period. If you don’t, then you will be mailed a notice by your local election official, and if you don’t respond to it, they will remove you from the list and just assume that you no longer want to receive that mail ballot or that your address is outdated.

MARK BRODIE: And this includes primary — it could be the primary election, it could be a general election, it could be a city, like an off-cycle city election — it could be any election, but as you say, you do have to use that mail-in ballot in at least one election in those two cycles.

SASHA HUPKA: Exactly. And I think it’s worth noting for people that voting in person doesn’t count. So, if for instance in 2023, 2024, 2025, and then again this year, I as a voter am receiving my mail ballot, maybe I’m looking it over before I head out the door to the polls, but I’m voting in person in all of those elections that sort of span that four-year stretch, that doesn’t count.

It’s not about whether you vote; it’s about whether you vote either by mail or by putting your mail ballot in a drop box or dropping it off at the polls on Election Day. That mail ballot itself has to be what you vote at least once in order to avoid potentially being at risk of being removed from the list.

MARK BRODIE: And I think it’s worth noting that being removed from the active early voting list does not mean that you’re removed from the voter rolls. Folks who maybe don’t vote in those over those two election cycles, do not respond to the notice, they can still vote on Election Day or at a voting center. They just will not get an early ballot anymore, yeah?

SASHA HUPKA: That’s exactly right. And so, I think it’s been actually in a way very difficult to explain this law to people because it sort of sounds really scary when you talk about removals, right? These people will still be able to vote.

However, we also have research from other states that have enacted sort of similar laws that does suggest for many voters, this might force a change in their voting habits or sort of lead to them voting less or not voting at all. And so, I think both of these things are true, right? It’s not the same as being taken off the rolls, and also there is some evidence that suggests that this is still something that really discourages people from voting.

MARK BRODIE: And to that point, it was interesting reading through your piece. There’s a particular word that was not used that a lot of times people talk about, election officials purging the voter rolls of people who maybe aren’t living in a particular jurisdiction or have died, things like that. Was that a conscious choice not to use that word in this story?

SASHA HUPKA: That absolutely was. Just to sort of peel back the curtain a little bit and maybe let listeners in on what goes on behind the scenes, every story, those are the types of things I discuss with my editor, and I very vividly remember that my first draft of this story I did use the word "purge."

And I flagged it for my editors because obviously that word is a very inflammatory word, potentially, and so I flagged that for them and we had a discussion. We also talked with some election experts and some local election officials, and ultimately we decided not to call this a purge because we did not want people to think that what we meant by that was that people were definitely going to be removed from the rolls, because that’s not what’s happening here.

At the same time, this is a mass removal from the early voting list, a list that used to be permanent. It was called the Permanent Early Voting List prior to this law passing. And so, this does still stand to have a very big impact in Arizona.

MARK BRODIE: Do we have a sense of how many people might fall into this? Obviously, there’s still another election that people can vote in coming up in November that, even if they haven’t voted in the three previous years, do county election officials or the secretary of state have any idea of how many voters they might be sending notices to?

SASHA HUPKA: Right now, the answer seems to be no. I reached out to the Secretary of State’s Office for this story. I did ask if they could get me that type of number, and they actually informed me that the state’s voter registration system, they were working on coding the capability for them to even figure out that number, so it was not available.

I had reached out to Maricopa and Pima counties as well, actually. They’re on a different system than the state voter registration system, and so I was hoping they might be able to get me numbers, but it just didn’t end up working out for deadline reasons and some other reasons with their systems.

But what we do know is that there’s a group, the Brennan Center, well-known election research organization, they did research on this right after the law passed. And these numbers are not necessarily up to date, but in 2022 what they found was that about 340,000 Arizonans would be at risk under this new law.

Obviously, those numbers may have changed. It’s been some time since then, and we won’t know for sure what the number is until after November, but certainly that suggests a large number of people might be impacted by this.

MARK BRODIE: And it’s a quick turnaround, right, between the November election when county election officials will see who actually did vote, and then they have to send these out shortly after the new year, right?

SASHA HUPKA: That’s correct. And actually, by statute they have to send them out on or by Jan. 15 of odd-numbered years. So, Jan. 15, 2027, is the day that they need to be able to send out these notices. So, I will be obviously doing further reporting on this because I want to know exactly who is impacted.

That Brennan Center study found non-white voters were at much higher risk than white voters were, and so I want to see, is that actually the case? But one of the things I will also be tracking is, what does the process of getting these notices out look like.

MARK BRODIE: Right. Interesting. All right, lots more to come on this. Sasha Hupka of Votebeat, thank you.

SASHA HUPKA: Thank you.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, the art of creating huge public sculptures in Phoenix. We’ll hear from a local artist whose welding skills came in handy on a public art project in Maryvale.

But first, the city of Phoenix recently put speed cameras back on city streets, 17 to be exact, and as of last week, they went off nearly 290,000 times. More than 80,000 citations have been issued according to the city; nearly 7,700 have been paid. And if you really don’t like them, you can vote to ban them in November. Prop 319 would ban the use of photo radar for traffic enforcement by state and local governments. If a company already has a contract for photo radar, they could only continue it if voters approve.

So, we decided to go to an expert to find out the real question behind all of this political debate: Do they work? Do they slow people down, prevent crashes? Dr. Hesham Rakha is the director of the Center for Sustainable Mobility at Virginia Tech University. My co-host Lauren Gilger spoke with him more about this, beginning with that central question: Do speed cameras work?

HESHAM RAKHA: So, I guess the answer to that is, generally speaking, yes, they work. They reduce speeds and they reduce the accidents. The results vary depending on the site and so forth. So, there are studies like there was one study, a Cochrane review, that looked at 35 studies and they found that, for example, there were reductions near the camera sites of 8% to 49% in all crashes.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow.

HESHAM RAKHA: 8% to 50% in injury crashes and 11% to 44% in fatal crashes. This was a study in 2010. And so, there are reductions and definitely they do reduce crashes, but then it’ll depend on the location and enforcement and so forth.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. So, let’s talk about that. In terms of reducing speeding, reducing crashes as a result of speeding, do we know what kinds of collisions go down because of these cameras? There’s always this question people will say, “Do people slam on their brakes when they see a camera there and then cause more accidents?”

HESHAM RAKHA: That’s a good thing, and that leads into these variable speed limits because basically if you are driving on a freeway and you have what we call shockwaves — are you familiar with a shockwave?

LAUREN GILGER: No, what does that mean?

HESHAM RAKHA: So, a shockwave is basically you’re driving and then suddenly the car ahead of you is slamming on its brakes, and then you have to slam on your brakes. And it causes these what we call stop-and-go waves in the traffic stream. Those are extremely dangerous because you can result in rear-end crashes.

And so, one way that we as researchers are trying to reduce the speed of these shockwaves is by changing the speeds more gradually upstream to absorb those shockwaves. And you see these more cautious drivers that keep a longer gap — I mean, I look at myself as a driver. When I experience one of these shockwaves, I become more cautious and I leave a longer gap between me and the vehicle ahead of me in order to absorb any abrupt speed reduction from the vehicle ahead of me that I could then drive more safely.

LAUREN GILGER: So, cities should maybe put a notification 100 yards before the speed camera, that kind of thing? I think we do have something like that here in Phoenix.

HESHAM RAKHA: Yes, and my understanding — this is in Virginia, but I don’t know if it’s in every state — but by law, they have to put a warning sign to inform drivers that there are cameras.

LAUREN GILGER: So, overall, these work, you say, based on the research. But what do you say to critics who say these speed cameras are unfair, they’re essentially an illegal tax? We’ve seen major pushback against speed cameras in Phoenix, including a worker was shot who was fixing one once years ago here.

HESHAM RAKHA: I mean, definitely there is legitimate concern about trying to just use these as means to get tickets and income, and you see that in a lot of places. But the results show that they do reduce crashes, so in my opinion, it’s a good strategy, but as long as it’s not driven by profits, I guess.

LAUREN GILGER: And that is a sentiment that can feel like that’s what’s happening from the public’s point of view, for sure, sometimes.

HESHAM RAKHA: That’s correct. Even me as a person who drives, I feel that sometimes. I do also work on running of red lights and the design of yellow timings. And once I was driving my car and it was yellow and I tried to beat the yellow light, but it turned red on me, I got caught. And I told the guy, “I actually do studies on this.”

And so, this is what we call the dilemma zone. So, you are faced with a decision that you have to make in a very short period of time. “Do I have enough time to get through the light or do I slam on my brakes?”

Stopping is not always the right decision. If you slam on your brakes like you mentioned, I could be causing a rear-end crash with the vehicle behind me. And so, there are times where you should be running the yellow light, you should not be stopping, and there are times when you should be stopping. And so, that dilemma or decision zone is where the driver can make a wrong decision and you think that you have enough time, but you don’t.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So, you study various parts of these kind of traffic issues. If the goal overall is to reduce speeds and to reduce the crashes and fatal crashes that come as a result of that — we have a high rate of fatal crashes on freeways in particular in Arizona, but I think on street roads as well — what else is effective? What should cities be looking at if not speed cameras, or should it be speed cameras and other things?

HESHAM RAKHA: So, studies have shown that it’s more the speed variability that is a bigger issue than the speed per se. So, if you look at, for example, trucks, here in Virginia we have these — we’re in the mountains and so the trucks travel slower than the regular vehicles given that they’re much heavier. That’s why we have truck climbing lanes in order to separate these trucks from the regular traffic. Once the speed of a vehicle goes lower than the regular traffic stream speed by about 10 miles an hour, then it becomes a safety hazard.

And so, the speed variability both spatial and temporal — like spatial meaning that we mentioned about these shockwaves, like suddenly the car ahead of you slams on their brakes that causes this propagation of the shockwave that I have to slam on my brakes, or spatial could be across the lanes where you have trucks traveling slower than cars — that is actually a bigger issue than the speed per se.

LAUREN GILGER: That’s very interesting. There was just a recent AAA Foundation study that came out here in Arizona showing that 55% of Arizona drivers think that keeping up with the flow of traffic — that “flow of traffic” phrase that you hear — is safer than actually following the speed limit. Does your research point to that being true, essentially?

HESHAM RAKHA: I guess it depends on how fast are these cars driving than the speed limit. So, if they’re driving like five to seven miles an hour above, then I would say that argument would be correct. But if it’s much higher than the speed limit, then the speed limit is there for a reason. Sections of roadway that are designed, like the curves are designed for certain speeds, so if you drive much faster than those speeds, you’re a safety hazard as well.

So, I think it’s a — I don’t think there’s a fixed answer to that. I mean, it depends on what level of speed they’re driving at relative to the speed limit and if it’s straight versus curved and so forth.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So overall, if you’re looking at a place with really high rates of speeding and high rates of speed-related crashes like we see here in Arizona, is the answer just lowering speed limits all around? We’ve seen a couple of cities in the Valley do that recently, like take everything down on specific roadways by five or 10 miles per hour.

HESHAM RAKHA: I don’t think I would agree with that. I mean, if you look at the crash rate based on the national averages in the U.S., the crash rate on a freeway is half the crash rate that you have on an arterial in a downtown area.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so if lowering the speed limit’s not the answer, speed cameras can help, it sounds like. Do you think the answer is then — is it just driving culture? Is it having more officers on the road watching and giving out tickets in real life?

HESHAM RAKHA: I’m not sure I have an answer to that, but I think definitely speed cameras can help. I think also these other technologies, like variable speed limits, and these are really trying to reduce the variability in the speeds spatially on the roadway.

LAUREN GILGER: Which sounds like it’s the most dangerous part. Wow, OK. We’ll leave it there. That is Dr. Hesham Rakha joining us, director of the Center for Sustainable Mobility at Virginia Tech. He’s also faculty in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering there. Dr. Rakha, thank you so much for coming on The Show. Thanks for explaining all this to me. I appreciate it very much.

HESHAM RAKHA: Thank you very much.

MARK BRODIE: We also asked the city of Phoenix how much money it’s collected as a result of the speed cameras on city roads. Out of those roughly 81,000 citations issued, just 7,657 of them had been paid as of July 30. That brought in a total of about $1.6 million.

But the city doesn’t take in all that money. After state-mandated charges, statutory assessments, and court fees, the city took in just a little under $700,000. Then it pays the company that runs the speed cameras and for staff, and any remaining funds will be invested in the city’s Vision Zero Road Safety Action Plan. All in all, the city told us “The photo safety program was never intended to generate revenue.”

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie. Arizona will see its allotment of Colorado River water cut over the next two years under rules released by the federal government earlier this month. The Feds had to come up with those rules because the seven Colorado River Basin states couldn’t come up with agreement among themselves on what to do with the over-allocated river. Shortly after the rules came out, Nevada announced it’s suing the federal government, calling its plan fundamentally flawed. Arizona lawmakers have put money into a fund to pay for potential litigation related to the Colorado River, but the state has not yet decided whether it’s going to file suit. It’s in that context that Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, came by the studio late last week, and we started our conversation by taking a read of the room of sorts. I asked if it’s fair to say that folks here generally are feeling that the new rules aren’t great, but that they could have been a lot worse.

TOM BUSCHATZKE: I think that somewhat sums it up, but we really have applauded the fact that California, Arizona and Nevada for 2027 and 2028 put 3.2 million acre-feet of water on the table to help prop up the elevation of Lake Mead.

And perhaps more importantly, California and Nevada, their volumes of water are on the table. It’s likely legally California didn’t have to put anything on the table. So I think that’s a great outcome for us collectively to show that collaborative nature, but it also results in less reductions for the state of Arizona.

Unfortunately, for the next three to 10 years — 2029 and beyond — there’s some huge risks under the federal decision. They might cut by 3 million acre-feet in priority. So, what that could mean in at least one interpretation of priority is that the Central Arizona Project could go dry.

My cities north of Yuma — Lake Havasu City, Bullhead City — would also lose their Colorado River water, and they have no alternative supplies. And even Yuma, who has a higher priority than those folks, could lose almost half of their water. So, that’s a very draconian outcome, and of course we’re very unhappy that that’s a possibility moving forward.

MARK BRODIE: So, I’m curious about the fact that all of the seven states — these plans are only for two years at a time. Do you have reason to think that the seven states can come up with some kind of agreement in the next two years when you haven’t been able to over the past however many years up until now?

TOM BUSCHATZKE: So, my view is that when all seven states feel risk to their water supplies, that will be the lever that gets us to an agreement. We asked the federal government in this current process to assess risk in the four Upper Basin states by looking at how they might be reduced if the compact was enforced in the way we believe it should be enforced.

Neither the former federal administration nor this one chose to do so. So I guess the other possibility of assigning risk is if you go to Congress. Nothing’s going to happen in Congress without all seven states. So, perhaps the third level of government that could assess risk or assign risk is the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

So that’s certainly not our preferred path, and we’ll see if the next set of discussions with all seven states can come up with a better outcome. But for three-and-a-half years we tried, and without that risk, I’m not sure what other levers can be pulled.

MARK BRODIE: OK, so you mentioned the legal system. Let me ask you — because one of your fellow Lower Basin states, Nevada, has sued over this plan. I’m curious what you make of that.

TOM BUSCHATZKE: So, we are assessing the Nevada complaint. We’re assessing what it means, whether we want to participate in it. And we haven’t made that decision yet. But certainly my department is working in concert with Gov. Hobbs’ office on assessing that complaint and trying to figure out what our path forward is.

But I will say this: This proposal that we put together among the three states — Arizona, California, Nevada — we need to keep that in place. And so, that will go into our calculation of the Nevada complaint and how we respond to it.

MARK BRODIE: Is there a risk that Nevada filing the suit potentially on its own could put the agreement that we have right now at risk?

TOM BUSCHATZKE: I guess that is a potential outcome. Nevada put pretty much every issue on the table in its complaint, and you just don’t know where any of those will go in front of a court.

MARK BRODIE: What does it mean for Arizona that we’re going to be losing this amount of water?

TOM BUSCHATZKE: So, the 760,000 acre-feet that we would lose in 2027 and 2028 would almost all come out of the Central Arizona Project. A little bit for some folks on the river. But we are pretty well prepared to deal with that level of reductions.

There’s something called the Arizona Water Banking Authority. We’ve been storing water under the ground, and we have since 1996. We’re going to recover some of that water. And as a matter of fact, the bank a couple weeks ago passed a policy that for 2027, we’re going to completely 100% fill the reduction of folks’ water orders.

But we’re balancing in the water bank short-term fixes versus making sure the water bank has water for the long term. And interestingly, when we talk about collaborating with California and Nevada, in the early 2000s, Nevada was actually using more than their entitlement, so through the Water Banking Authority, we stored water under the ground for Nevada. That gave them some security, and then they started hyper-conservation programs — paying for people to remove their grass, and they went from a number — 325,000 acre-feet per year — they’re down to 250,000 acre-feet a year.

But I just say that because it’s been part of the evolution of the three Lower Basin states working together.

MARK BRODIE: Do you think that there will be more of that kind of conservation mindset in Arizona, be it ripping out your grass, or maybe we rethink our relationship with agriculture, or anything like that?

TOM BUSCHATZKE: I think it’s an all-hands-on-deck kind of philosophy that needs to be implicated. I mean, Arizona has always been a leader in conservation. The cities have reduced their per capita use substantially, even with pretty large growth since the 1980 Groundwater Management Act was passed.

The other thing that we’ll be doing is maybe changing the way we use reclaimed water. But of course, you got to make choices about those uses that the reclaimed water is being used for now.

MARK BRODIE: When you talk about other sources of water, I’m wondering in the universe of things that you’re concerned about, where does groundwater fall? If some of these entities don’t get Colorado River water anymore, we know that groundwater’s being depleted at a pretty rapid pace. How concerned are you about that?

TOM BUSCHATZKE: So, we don’t want to go back to relying on groundwater for the long term, but we did pass the Groundwater Management Act of 1980 to preserve our groundwater for drought periods.

There are also basins outside of the Phoenix-Tucson corridor that were designated in the early ’90s by the Legislature for that water to be recovered and moved into our areas. Some of that’s already happening. We’ve approved some of those things — the town of Queen Creek, for example — and it gets transported through the CAP canal.

There are these other resources out there. Taking water away from agriculture at this point — the agriculture within the Central Arizona Project has already lost their water over the last four years because of the cuts we’ve already had to take. So, you look at the Yuma area, who has substantial Colorado River water, but if you take that water away and move it here, then the vegetable market, which comes from Yuma in the wintertime, that’s going to be impacted.

So, we have to create a balancing act of all the resource values that this water creates. And again, not only agriculture, but we’re making the most advanced microchips in the Western Hemisphere right here in Phoenix, for example. A lot of that’s Colorado River water.

And we’ve had these discussions with the federal government, like these issues of Arizona’s Colorado River water being reduced are really issues of national security on several levels, including food security.

So, there’s some tough times ahead in that regard, in figuring out how we’re going to continue to meet those important outcomes and still deal with what we have to do, at least in the near term, reduce our water take out of the Colorado River.

MARK BRODIE: All right. That is Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources. Tom, thanks as always.

TOM BUSCHATZKE: All right, thanks for having me.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning, it’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Mark Brodie. Now let’s hear one of our favorite conversations from our series "Made in Arizona".

[MADE IN ARIZONA MONTAGE PLAYS]

MARK BRODIE: Bobby Zokaites is a sculptor who often works on a very large scale. One of his latest public art projects, titled "A Time Machine Called Tinaja," features two massive sculptural arches; one is 16 feet tall, the other is 19. They look like two giant streams of water shooting up over the park with a landscape winding path below. My co-host Lauren Gilger spoke with Zokaites last year when he won a national award for that piece, and they started with the community-centered approach he takes to public art.

BOBBY ZOKAITES: When we are conceptualizing a project, we spend a lot of time with the community. And "A Time Machine Called Tinaja," we actually went into the high school, Trevor G. Browne High School, and sat with every one of their art classes with a map of the site, box of crayons, and just got their stories.

LAUREN GILGER: What does that look like? What did people draw, these kids?

BOBBY ZOKAITES: It’s kind of all over the place. We’ve gotten better. We had mazes, we had stick figures. What we’re doing, we’re not trying to look at their drawings. We’re trying to listen to their conversations. And the predominant thing that we heard in that project, because you have Trevor G. Browne High School, Oso Park, and then Estrella Middle School, and the site’s right there in between the park and the middle school. And so the high schoolers were talking about the nostalgic feeling that they had when they went and picked up their kid siblings, hence a time machine.

LAUREN GILGER: So, it’s a bridge between these two places in that sense. But it’s also about water, right? This is to do with water in the desert, and it looks like water; it evokes water. When you’re thinking about water and how to create something that looks like water in the desert in a sculpture that is not water, where do you begin?

BOBBY ZOKAITES: Well, water in the desert’s mythical, right? So, we can do anything you want. No, so the site is a Water Department site; it’s an old water well site. It’s a beautification project through their office. So, really when you’re trying to come up with something like that, you imagine what it flows like, what it is, but also like we chose arches, so there’s a portal and sort of a place for the water to go, so to speak.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. You talk about wanting people to climb on the art, to touch the art, to mess around with it, right? It sounds like this is a lot about play. Are you evoking your own childhood in a lot of this?

BOBBY ZOKAITES: Some of it. A lot of it is — well, I actually wrote my thesis on playgrounds. And actually a lot of your playground equipment were designed by sculptors in the ’50s. Your monkey bars, your sandbox was an architect in Holland during the rebuilding of World War II.

LAUREN GILGER: So, this is rooted in theory and in history for you.

BOBBY ZOKAITES: Yeah. Yeah, well, and also practicality. Like I can’t sit in front of a computer, so I have to be in the studio welding and seeing how things go together.

LAUREN GILGER: Let me stop you there, because I have to ask you about that, about how you make this stuff, because you’re physically making it. It’s not like you’re 3D printing this stuff; it’s made by hand. And it sounds like a kind of heavy lift, right?

BOBBY ZOKAITES: It’s something you learn. I learned how to weld when I was 13 for a high school robotics class, and then over the years, it started out being a thing that I could do that nobody else could do, and then now it’s super predominant. Some of the projects we’re doing have so much welding involved, it’s mind-boggling.

LAUREN GILGER: So, you’ve got a pretty large space to work in, I’m guessing?

BOBBY ZOKAITES: No. I have a standalone garage and an empty lot. So, the garage right now in the summertime, it’s our ultimate fallback position, so like there’s a small little air conditioner and we can do small things. But most of the time we are outside in the sun. We do temporary shade structures and stuff to build these things, especially like the 20-footers, yeah.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, 20-footers, that’s right. Do you ever, after a project has been completed and it’s up, do you ever go by and like watch how people interact with it? Do you ever kind of sneak that way?

BOBBY ZOKAITES: Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes.

LAUREN GILGER: What do you see?

BOBBY ZOKAITES: Well, sometimes like I’ve got projects on the light rail in Tempe and they just walk by, but other times you get to see like a dad have a special moment with a child. You get to see sort of a bonding over the, "Hey, look at that," kind of thing. And that’s super cool.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. I want to ask you about something you said, because you’re talking about public art and the importance of public art and the way it’s used, the way it’s rooted in this community or in whatever community it’s going to go in. What is public art to you? What does that mean?

BOBBY ZOKAITES: So, there’s art in the public, which there’s a lot of academics, there’s a lot of people who make work and display it in the public, and that — there is a fine line there because you can have private money do that. With public money, you see it all the time in our area around the highways in the sound walls. I mean, in Phoenix, any piece of infrastructure that’s been built in the last 50 years has a piece of artwork on it.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. So, let’s talk about the role of public art in Phoenix in particular, because Phoenix is sort of surprisingly one of the leaders in public art in the country. That’s why you’re here, you said?

BOBBY ZOKAITES: Yeah, I moved to Phoenix because — so, I was a sculptor. I was a trained sculptor, and I was in northern Minnesota at a place called Franconia Sculpture Park, and I was playing with — we had an eight-ton boom truck that we got to play with every day, a 20-ton forklift, and we were making 30, 40-foot sculptures, like five or six of them every summer, 15-foot sculptures, 10, 12 of those every summer. It was a crazy high output, but we were doing everything on a shoestring. I mean, I was 22; I needed to go to grad school. Moved to the Phoenix Valley. ASU’s a very good school for sculpture, and also the public art and how established it is and how robust it is. So, I certainly view the Phoenix Valley as the leader for best practices in the field.

LAUREN GILGER: I wonder what you think — what difference comes from that? How do you think it makes a difference in the community having so much public art and public investment in it?

BOBBY ZOKAITES: Well, there’s points of pride in the community. There’s also — one of the things that’s been really eye-opening for me in my career is the idea of governance. Right now, everybody’s super frustrated with the federal governance. It doesn’t matter what side you’re on, you’re frustrated with it. Local governance is different, right? It’s about participation, right? And so, for me, like each one of my projects being tied to a piece of infrastructure, I get to see and have confidence in the water people’s ability to deliver clean drinking water for a hundred years. Or like the Valley Metro to build the train, right? And it’s allowed me insight into the rigor that these infrastructure projects go through to be able to get the funding to be able to build these things, and confidence in the people who are doing that. And I hope that when we do the community engagement and stuff, it’s a way for community to sort of like break down that layer and start participating in their own governance.

LAUREN GILGER: That’s really great. So, there’s much more to it for you. I want to ask you lastly about the idea of sculpture and going into that as a practice, as opposed to many of the artists who I’ve interviewed who do something much more two-dimensional, right? I mean, it seems like a very different type of person who is drawn to that.

BOBBY ZOKAITES: Yes.

LAUREN GILGER: What type are you?

BOBBY ZOKAITES: Well, my hobby, I go canyoneering as a hobby, which is you take ropes out into the desert and you rig them and you rappel down the cliff sides in the desert. So, there’s like some adrenaline there, but there’s also very much an understanding of what is going on, the safety procedures, and the challenge. I would say sculptors are super interested in pushing those boundaries from a tinkering perspective and not like a perspective of gusto like a performing artist would have.

LAUREN GILGER: Sure. Is there something about filling space that you like in this practice?

BOBBY ZOKAITES: Well, sculpture, like big sculpture, the first time you see your own work picked up by a crane, like that’s a feeling. No, there’s a magic when you go from making tabletop studies to even just eight feet. Our architecture that we live within is built to eight feet, so as soon as you get to nine feet, you’re monumental. And you’re standing under a thing that you made, and that’s a really great feeling. And then it’s a feedback loop of practice to work at that scale and get all of the proportions right, and yeah.

LAUREN GILGER: Bobby Zokaites joining us. Thank you so much for coming on; I appreciate it.

BOBBY ZOKAITES: Yeah, thank you.

MARK BRODIE: Thanks for listening to The Show’s podcast. The Show is produced by Sativa Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankrah, and Ayana Hamilton. The Show was created by Jon Hoban. Our executive producer is Amy Silverman. You can find more of The Show and sign up for our newsletter at theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram @kjzztheshow.