Latest news with #CentralArizonaProject
Axios
2 days ago
- Politics
- Axios
Sandra Day O'Connor voted most influential figure in Arizona History Showdown
And the winner is … Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. State of play: The Arizona History Showdown is over, and the history-making O'Connor was voted by Axios Phoenix readers as our state's most influential historical figure. O'Connor easily dispatched Sen. John McCain, taking nearly 65% of the vote in the championship round. Between the lines: O'Connor is, of course, most famous as the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, and her lasting influence was primarily at the national level for her many years on the bench and her role in deciding major cases. But before she became a groundbreaking national figure, she was a highly influential state legislator, rising to Senate majority leader, and she went on to become a Maricopa County Superior Court and Arizona Court of Appeals judge, setting the stage for her Supreme Court tenure. Her legacy lives at the federal courthouse in downtown Phoenix, which is named for her, and the nonprofit Sandra Day O'Connor Institute, which was founded in her honor in 2009 to champion civics education and civil discourse. What they're saying: Scott O'Connor, the justice's son, told Axios that his mother's greatest accomplishments in the Senate included a statute-by-statute elimination of laws that were discriminatory against women, and major mental health legislation inspired by her time working for the Attorney General's Office at the Arizona State Hospital. Throughout her career, he said, his mother would find areas of need and do what she could to improve them. He called his mother the godmother of Arizona's judicial merit selection system, which voters approved in 1974. After she retired from the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor created the iCivics online education provider, which her son said is a major, but often overlooked, accomplishment. Jeremy's thought bubble: I left the voting to our readers, but if I'd filled out a bracket, my winner would've been longtime U.S. Sen. Carl Hayden. Hayden has been gone for so many years and Arizona has grown so much in the decades since his Senate career ended that it's easy to overlook how important he was to the state. He used his seniority to direct a lot of federal resources to what was, at the time, a very small state, and capped his career with the passage of the monumentally important Central Arizona Project. The bottom line: Thanks to all of our readers who made the Arizona History Showdown a success! As a native Arizonan and lifelong history nerd, this has been a labor of love and a longtime dream, and I'm glad that so many of you enjoyed it. 🗣️ You tell us: The bracket format was a lot of fun, and we'd love to use it again.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Arizona politicians must OK painful water cuts. What could possibly go wrong?
Arizona is almost certain to lose a sizable amount of Colorado River water after 2026. But it could still be months until we know exactly how much pain that could cause for our state. The goal is to finish a draft analysis of alternatives by the end of the year, with a final plan of action completed by next summer. If so, that may not leave much time for Arizona to work through an extra step that only our state faces: Legislative approval. Presuming it's December before this required federal analysis is completed, that basically leaves next year's legislative session to figure out how Arizona responds to it. The good news — if you want to call it that — is that we've been through this before in 2019 with the Drought Contingency Plan, which also thrust painful Colorado River cuts on Arizona. Lawmakers had only weeks to approve the plan and a separate in-state deal to temporarily mitigate its impacts. But this time around, the stakes are much higher. The cuts will be deeper and more painful than they were in 2019. The politics are different, too. Back then, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey had wide latitude to press for a deal without having to worry whether the Republican-run Legislature would support him on it. It was not an election year. And water policy had not yet become a partisan bludgeon, as it is now between Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and the Republican-run Legislature. Our state must overcome these divisions if we have any hope of minimizing the pain for water users. That means our elected leaders must press everyone not to hold out for the deal they want, but to take the deal that they can live with. That may be easier said than done, particularly if cuts leave little water in the Central Arizona Project, the 330-mile canal that delivers Colorado River water to cities and tribes in metro Phoenix and Tucson. There will be tremendous pressure on Yuma, which has more senior water rights, to help ensure that water continues flowing to the state's largest cities. Yet decades of urban vs. rural political baggage could easily blow up that discussion, making it even more difficult to arrive at a deal. Navigating this minefield will require deft leadership to carefully balance interests while maintaining a unified front to the rest of the Colorado River basin. Because trust me: As volatile as this process already is among the states, Arizona will either remain united and live to fight another day, or it will split into warring factions and risk losing it all. Thankfully, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, a Democrat, and Mesa Mayor Mark Freeman, a Republican, have formed a coalition to explain how Arizona conserves water and why drastic cuts to either metro Phoenix or Yuma could hurt our national interests. (Hint: Because Phoenix now produces some of the world's most advanced semiconductors, and Yuma is the only place in the nation that grows our salad greens in the winter.) The mayors wisely recognize that working relationships are what brought us a deal in 2019 and hope to strengthen them all over the state. Opinion: How will Arizona replace the water it's losing? Hobbs and key lawmakers, to their credit, also understand that they must work together to protect the Colorado River, even if they have yet to broker passable compromises on groundwater. But it's one thing to say as much. It's another to deliver on that promise, particularly when such strong political headwinds are blowing against us. Arizona has a long history of doing big things when our future depends on it. Are our leaders still up to the task? Reach Allhands at or on X @joannaallhands. Like this column? Get more opinions in your email inbox by signing up for our free opinions newsletter, which publishes Monday through Friday. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Colorado River plan faces another hurdle: Arizona lawmakers | Opinion
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Shared risk at the heart of dispute over Colorado River
Railroad tracks run along the Colorado River as it flows along Interstate 70 through Glenwood Canyon near Glenwood Springs. (William Woody for Colorado Newsline) A version of this story originally appeared in Big Pivots. Even-steven. That was the intent of delegates from the seven basin states in 1922 when they met near Santa Fe to forge a compact governing the Colorado River. But what exactly did they agree upon? That has become a sticking point in 2025 as states have squared off about rules governing the river in the drought-afflicted and climate-changed 21st century. The negotiations between the states, according to many accounts, have been fraught with tensions. Becky Mitchell, Colorado's lead negotiator, delivered a peek into that dispute at a forum on May 22 in Silverthorne along the headwaters of the river. The Colorado River Compact was a quid pro quo. California, in particular, but also Arizona, was ready to see the highs and lows of the rivers smoothed out. They, as well as Nevada, wanted a giant reservoir in Boulder Canyon in Nevada near the small town of Las Vegas, which then had a population of 2,300. Those Southwestern states couldn't do it alone, though. They needed the federal government to build the dam later called Hoover. For that, they needed the support of Colorado and the three other upper-basin states. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Colorado, represented by Delph Carpenter, and the three other headwaters states realized that they had best reach a compromise, as they would more slowly develop the rivers. If the doctrine of prior appropriation that they had all adopted within their own states prevailed on the Colorado River, the water would be gone by the time they found need for it. This was the foundation for Article III of the Colorado River Compact. It apportions 7.5 million acre-feet in perpetuity for the exclusive beneficial consumption by each of the two basins. On top of this 15 million acre-feet, they knew there would be water lost to evaporation, now calculated at 1.5 million acre-feet annually, plus some sort of delivery obligation to Mexico, which later turned out to be 1.5 million acre-feet. In Santa Fe, delegates had assumed bounteous flows in the river, as had occurred in the years prior to their meeting. And so, embracing that short-term view of history, they believed the river would deliver 20 million acre-feet. It has not done so routinely. Even when there was lots of water, during the 1990s and even before, as Eric Kuhn and John Fleck explained in their 2019 book, 'Science be Dammed,' troubles ahead could be discerned. And by 1993, when the Central Arizona Project began hoisting water to Phoenix and Tucson, the river ceased absolutely to reach the ocean. Then came the 21st century drought. Those framing the compact understood drought as a temporary affliction, not the multi-decade phenomenon now perplexing the states in the Colorado River Basin. Nor did they contemplate a warming, drying climate called aridification. Similar to drought in effects, it is rooted in accumulating atmospheric gases. Unlike drought, it has little to no chance of breaking. Now, faced with creating new rules governing the sharing of this river, delegates from the seven states are at odds in various ways, but perhaps none so much as in their interpretation of compact's Article D. It says that the upper-division states 'will not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry to be depleted below an aggregate of 75,000,000 acre-feet for any period of ten consecutive years.' The lower division states have so far received 75 million acre-feet over every revolving 10-year period. The upper-basin states have not fully developed their apportionment, although Colorado has come close. In the last 25 years, the upper-basin states have been using 3.5 million to 4.5 million acre-feet. The lower-basin states that a decade ago were still using 10 million acre-feet have cut back their use to 7.5 million acre-feet. Lake Powell serves as a water bank for the upper basin states. The storage in 2022 had declined to 22%, although a good snow winter in 2022-23 restored levels somewhat. Today, the two reservoirs are at a combined 34% of full. 'That means 66% empty,' said Mitchell at the forum along the Blue River in Silverthorne at a 'state of the river' forum organized by the Colorado River Water Conservation District. Mitchell, an engineer by training, has a large on-stage presence. She's not one to mince words, sometimes straying into the colloquial. This outspokenness is more evident when she speaks exclusively to a home-town crowd. Silverthorne certainly counted as one. Shared risk is at the heart of the dispute. Colorado and other upper-basin states want the lower-basin states to accept that the river will not always satisfy all needs. 'How do we handle drought? We know how to do that in the upper basin, and most of the people in this room know that you get less,' said Mitchell, Colorado's representative on the Upper Colorado River Commission. 'That hasn't been the case in the lower basin.' The two basins differ in three fundamental ways. One is the pace of development. The lower basin developed quickly. The upper basin still has not used its full allocation. From the upper-basin perspective, that does not mean that the lower-basins states should expect something beyond a 50-50 split. 'The main thing that we got from the compact was the principle of equity and the ability to develop at our own pace,' said Mitchell. 'We shouldn't be punished because we didn't develop to a certain number. The conversation now, she added, is 'what does equity look like right now?' Another difference is that the upper basin has thousands of individual users. Sure, there are a few big ones, like Denver Water and the other Front Range transmountain water diverters who collectively draw 400,000 to 450,000 acre-feet annually across the Continental Divide. The lower basin has just a handful of diverters, and the diversions are massive. Also different — as alluded to by Mitchell — is that the lower basin has the big reservoirs lying upstream. The largest is Mead, with a capacity of almost 29 million acre-feet, followed closely by Powell at a little more than 25 million acre-feet. Mead was created expressly to meet needs of irrigators and cities in the desert southwest. Powell was created essentially to ensure that the upper-basin states could meet their delivery obligations. Mitchell shared a telling statistic: More water has been released from Powell in 8 of the last 10 years than has arrived into it. Upper-basin states must live within that hydrologic reality, said Mitchell. If it's a particularly bad snow year in the upper basin, the farms and ranches with junior water rights and even the cities can get shorted. The lower basin states? Not a problem. They always get their water — at least so far. But the two big reservoirs have together lost 50 million acre-feet of stored water. 'We're negotiating how to move forward in a way different place than we were negotiating 20 years ago,' said Mitchell. Upper-basin states have managed to deliver the 75 million acre-feet across 10 years that the compact specifies, but what exactly is the obligation? That has long been a gray area. At a forum two days before Mitchell spoke in Colorado, her counterpart in Arizona, Tom Buschatzke, reiterated at a conference in Tucson that they see the compact spelling out a clear obligation of upper-basin states to deliver 75 million acre-feet plus one-half of the water obligated to Mexico. What if the water isn't there? That's the crux of this dispute as the upper and lower basin states negotiate in advance of a September deadline set by the Bureau of Reclamation. In theory, if the situation were dire enough, Colorado could stop all its post-1922 diversions to allow the water to flow downstream. But is that what those gathered in Santa Fe in the shortening days of November 1922 had in mind? Will lawsuits toss this into the court system for resolution? That process might take decades and, if it ended up at the Supreme Court, it might not yield a nuanced outcome. Mitchell didn't address that directly, although she did say everybody on the river wants to avoid litigation. The situation described by Mitchell and other upper-basin proponents is perhaps analogous to a divorce settlement. The settlement may call for a 50-50 split of all earnings between the partners, but what if one becomes destitute and has no money to pool? Upper-basin states do have reservoirs to help buffer them from short-term droughts. Altogether, however, they don't come close to matching the capacity of Powell. Again, from the perspective of upper-basin states, California and Nevada have a sense of entitlement. Not that the upper basin states are angelic, said Mitchell. It's because they have no choice. 'I say we use three to four million acre-feet less than our apportionment. It varies. You know why? Because hydrology varies. And so we respond to hydrology. It's all based on snowpack and it's all gravity. Most of it is gravity dependent. We don't have those two big reservoirs above us like the lower basin does. We don't have those reservoirs to equal out the flows or allow us to overuse. We have to live with variable hydrology, and we take cuts every single year.' Upper-basin states want a willingness in this settlement for agreement that focuses on the water supply, not the demand. 'Common sense would tell you, maybe Mother Nature should drive how we operate the system.' That, she said, is the bedrock principle of the proposal from the upper division. With plentiful snowfall, greater releases from Powell might be possible, said Mitchell, and in times of extreme duress, water from Flaming Gore and perhaps the Blue Mesa and Navajo too. She said there might be room for greater conservation measures in the upper basin states. But there must be 'real work happening down in the lower basin,' she said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Governor Hobbs takes Colorado River helicopter tour, urging upper basin states to take water cuts
The Brief Western states are ramping up negotiations on the allocation of Colorado River water. During a helicopter tour with officials from the Central Arizona Project, Governor Katie Hobbs emphasized the importance of securing a fair share for Arizona. Hobbs says the state is working on solving an ongoing water crisis and would be much worse off without conservation efforts and previous cuts. PHOENIX - In the next few months, western states will have to get on board and agree on how much water each state will get from the Colorado River. It has been a decades-long battle and tense negotiations with other states are ramping up again. We are getting closer and closer to a critical moment in our state's water security. Governor Katie Hobbs helped explain what is being done to ensure we get a fair slice during a helicopter tour of the Colorado. The backstory The tour took off from the Central Arizona Project's (CAP) campus in North Phoenix. Inside, Governor Katie Hobbs listens as CAP General Manager Brenda Burman describes how the canal from the Colorado River is pumped uphill to bring water through the Valley and onward to Tucson. "Before cap growth was very much constrained in the Valley," said Burman. What we know Colorado River water was a large piece of the Arizona water puzzle and we have something called "junior rights" to it, meaning other states have bigger claims to the water before it ever even gets here. "We have already taken real cuts and done a lot to do our part in conservation, and we need the upper basin states to do the same thing," said Hobbs. The canal leads to Lake Pleasant, known for its boating and sunshine, but CAP thinks of it as a water storage facility. "This is where the water both comes in and is taken out so it's our intake towers," said Burman. What's next Soon, the states along the Colorado River will need to come to an agreement on how much each state gets. Arizona received water cuts in 2022 and our negotiator is fighting for upper basin states like Utah and Colorado to make cuts as well. It hasn't gone over well. Why you should care Flyovers help Hobbs and her negotiating team to gain more perspective during the negotiations. "We're in a position where the lower basin states have taken the brunt of the cuts until now and if we don't reach agreement with the upper basin we're going to be in a far worse position," she said. At a water roundtable, state, city, and tribal leaders stressed why CAP water is so valuable. "It doesn't seem like the upper basin is willing to do anything," said Terry Goddard, CAWCD Board President. "It's really critical at this point of time. Time is short," said Tom Buschatzke of the Arizona Department of Water Resources. What they're saying Katie Hobbs believes the state is in a water crisis. "Oh, absolutely, but we're solving it," she said. Moments later she clarified that answer. "I think if we weren't taking the action that we are now that we would get there, but we're taking action. We're avoiding that," said Hobbs.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Hobbs says Arizona will defend its Colorado River water, wants other states to accept cuts
Arizona is doing its part and taking its hits to conserve the Colorado River, Gov. Katie Hobbs said, and it's time for upstream states to do the same. The governor assembled a roundtable of water users and officials on May 13 to present what she called a unified front among the state's interests in defending Arizona's share of the Colorado River as time runs short for reaching a deal with other states that use the water. So far, states upstream from Arizona have not offered cutbacks beyond the limits that a paltry snowpack naturally extracts from their farmers. 'It's been more than a little frustrating,' Hobbs said. 'We've come to the table with real solutions, with real proposals. We have real skin in the game,' she said, including billions of dollars in water infrastructure upgrades and in conservation agreements that keep water in the river's reservoirs. 'The upper states need to be willing to take their share as well.' Gathered at Central Arizona Project headquarters with representatives of cities, tribes, farms and hydropower interests — all reliant on the river water that flowing into the CAP's canal — Hobbs said the state seeks a compromise. Otherwise, supplies could become subject to litigation, an outcome she said she's preparing for in part by seeking a legal fund from legislators. 'We need a signal that we're prepared to defend our water, and that's a strong signal,' Hobbs said. Negotiations lag: At odds over water cuts, Colorado River states still seek consensus as deadline nears As the West has warmed and dried, the river that seven states and Mexico share has shrunk. It's a reality that has already brought significant supply cuts to Arizona in particular, and that the states and federal government are trying to address with a new shortage-sharing deal that must be in place by the time the old one expires next year. U.S. Interior Department officials seek to publish a draft of a plan by summer, though it's unclear if the states will be able to agree on something by then or will simply wait to see what federal officials envision. So far, the Rocky Mountain states known collectively as the Upper Basin have declined to specify new cuts they might take, because they say they already suffer the consequences of a reduced snowpack that shortchanges their farmers every year. The federal government has paid some Lower Basin farmers and others to cut back on their demands from Lake Mead's storage bank, and the four Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming argue that their year-in, year-out hardship is unrewarded and largely invisible to water users in the Southwest. Those state also were slower to develop water that the 1922 Colorado River Compact envisioned for them, and therefore continue to use less even as an age of aridification has threatened their ability to send the Lower Basin its compact-prescribed share each year. 'We have hydrologic shortage every year across all four states,' Colorado's river commissioner, Becky Mitchell, said at a February meeting of the Upper Colorado River Commission. 'These are forced cuts based on administration (of water rights) that are not compensated.' Presented with that viewpoint, Hobbs rejected the claim that the Upper Basin is doing its part. 'That's water on paper,' the governor said. 'It's not real water. We're putting real water on the table and they're not, and they're not feeling any impact based on the system changes.' Questions linger: Trump's funding freeze muddies water outlook on the drought-stricken Colorado River Recognizing that the Lower Basin — Arizona, California and Nevada — use more of the water, those states have together proposed absorbing the first 1.5 million acre-feet of new cuts, enough water to support millions of households. But they want the Upper Basin to agree to share equally in any further cuts that might be necessary to keep the river flowing past Glen Canyon and Hoover dams in especially dry years. (Arizona's full allocation of Colorado River water, including on-river uses such as Yuma farms, is 2.8 million acre-feet. It is second to California's 4.4 million.) So far, the Upper Basin has not agreed to send more water, and the former Biden administration did not include that option in the alternatives it began analyzing before leaving office. Arizona Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke said Trump administration officials appear ready to help reach a 'collaborative agreement.' Because the previous administration's initial approach did not suggest obvious risk of new cuts for the Upper Basin, he said, it may have reduced incentives to deal. Discussions with Interior officials now suggest that they're 'more willing to tweak alternatives' in a way that can prod collaboration. 'This administration is taking more of the tack that we asked for, which is to show risk for both basins,' Buschatzke said. The two basins continue to talk, but he said he could not rate the chances of reaching a deal this summer. The Central Arizona Project has already absorbed a reduction of nearly a third of its normal entitlement to the river, partly from voluntary conservation measures and partly because the expiring shortage-sharing agreement lumped the first steep cuts on Arizona. Those mandated cuts reflect the lower priority that the state accepted decades ago in its effort to secure federal authorization for CAP. CAP Board President Terry Goddard told The Arizona Republic that what's left is critical to the region's health and the U.S. commitment to tribal water rights. He said he doubts it would be legal to further reduce canal flows to those users in the Phoenix and Tucson areas. Besides seeking conservation in other states, he said, it could be necessary to shift some of Arizona's next cuts to the Yuma area, which generally has older, superior water rights. Whether by cooperation or eventual emergency legislation, he said, it will be necessary to spread the pain. 'It's a time of shortage an everybody's going to pay the price,' Goddard said. 'We've already paid ours.' Want more water news like this? Sign up for AZ Climate, The Republic's weekly environment and climate newsletter Tribes including the Tohono O'odham, Ak-Chin and Gila River Indian Community attended the roundtable and said they have collaborated with cities and others to keep water in Lake Mead, and now it's incumbent on the United States to keep water flowing to them through the CAP canal. Ak-Chin Chairman Gabriel Lopez said the Colorado is his tribe's only reliable source for irrigating its 16,000 acres of farms. The U.S. granted the water in a 1978 settlement meant to make up for other users' depletion of the groundwater that previously supported the community, he said, and is a sacred trust. 'Tribes like us hold senior water rights,' Lopez said. 'We expect these sacred and good-faith obligation agreements to be honored.' Phoenix and Tucson officials noted that they have dramatically reduced per-capita use over decades and in recent years struck deals to keep some of their water in Lake Mead — a case that other cities around the watershed can also make. A representative from the Arizona Power Authority said low water kept Hoover Dam from generating a third of its contracted power last year, driving up prices for replacement power. An attorney for Pinal County farm groups said their conversion to groundwater as a replacement for previous CAP cuts will be in jeopardy if there's no baseflow in the canal to help move the groundwater to where it's needed. The economic development group Valley Partnership said it's the certainty surrounding CAP water that has allowed Phoenix and its ascendant semiconductor industry to thrive. Hobbs agreed, and said computer chip manufacturing in the area makes Arizona's water security a national priority. 'Our growing economy is not just important to Arizona, but it is important to the nation's economy, to national security, to moving manufacturing back to America,' Hobbs said. 'This conversation isn't just about Arizona. It's about our country.' Brandon Loomis covers environmental and climate issues for The Arizona Republic and Reach him at Environmental coverage on and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust. Sign up for AZ Climate, our weekly environment newsletter, and follow The Republic environmental reporting team at and @azcenvironment on Facebook and Instagram. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Gov. Katie Hobbs says other Colorado River states must cut water use
