BUSINESS NEWS | 4 hours ago | ERIN THORBURN

Arizona Forward is committed to Arizona water.

As Arizona’s oldest environmental advocacy group, Arizona Forward has a water committee made up of more than 60 people tied to various organizations — including cities and counties from across the state. Together, these individuals and organizations explore every facet of our desert’s most precious commodity — water. From exploring how water plays a role in industry operations and recreational uses to seeking the most innovative and progressive sustainability and conservation methods, Arizona Forward honors and supports the champions of Arizona’s future water planning.

Arizona Forward’s 2019 Environmental Excellence Awards reflected that focus as the group honored several water-related projects, including the Governor’s Award for Arizona’s Future, which was presented to Arizona’s Drought Contingency Plan Process (DCP) and committee co-chairs. After months of collaboration and compromise, the DCP plan details how impacted stakeholders, including Arizona and other states, will adapt to reductions on Colorado River water to secure water supplies for Arizona residents.

You down with DCP? 

The DCP is not a singular solution, but it is one essential cog in Arizona’s long-term plan to protect the future of our water.

“With the Drought Contingency Plan in place, we have some certainty about what to expect if Lake Mead’s level continues to decline,” says Ted Cooke, general manager of Central Arizona Project (CAP). “Since the DCP lasts through 2026, we have some time to put the next program in place with the other six Basin States.”

Although some wonder if Arizona’s water conservation and sustainability efforts will see our desert state through the next five decades, the DCP is one of many examples of what the state has successfully accomplished when it comes to water planning. A new higher tier level – Tier Zero – triggers reductions in water supplies to users. Lake Mead is expected to drop to Tier Zero in 2020 and 2021. Prior to the formal adoption of the DCP, Arizona had been conserving water in Lake Mead at Tier Zero levels since 2016, according to Cooke.

“Now that DCP is in place, Arizona and other Lower Basin states stored an additional 600,000 acre-feet in Lake Mead — in 2019 alone — all because of the new rules regarding access to Intentionally Created Surplus (ICS) under DCP,” Cooke adds.

To give it some perspective, an acre-foot is equivalent to 325,851 gallons of water.

A key piece of the DCP requires states and water suppliers to “bank” water in Lake Mead, where Arizona’s share of the Colorado River is stored. It’s working – so far. The lake is 22 feet higher than expected. Almost half of that was due to storage and contributions to system conservation. The rest came from heavy snowfall in the Rockies.

But Arizona’s proficiency in planning — even perhaps initially unintentional — reaches back significantly farther than the creation of the DCP.

“Our statewide demand for water is slightly lower than it was in the mid 1950s, although our population has more than doubled during that time period,” says Sethuraman Panchanathan, executive vice president of Arizona State University’s Knowledge Enterprise. “And currently, we are using slightly less water than we did five decades ago. What this tells us is that there is hope moving forward.”

“We live within the water supplies we currently have and have also managed to store millions of acre-feet underground,” adds Cooke. “Our consumption today is about the same as it was 60 years ago, even though the population is nearly seven times larger and the economy is nearly 25 times as big.”

Moving forward, DCP stands as a historic and valuable precedent of collaboration between states. It will also serve as an integral component of Arizona’s future water supply. Cooke describes the initiative as another step in the long list of difficult water-related challenges that have been successfully addressed by Arizona. This includes the authorization of the CAP in 1968, the passage of the Groundwater Management Act in 1980 and the creation of the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District (CAGRD) in 1993, among others.

“Arizona has a long history of careful groundwater management in the state-designated Active Management Areas (AMAs) pursuant to the 1980 Groundwater Management Act, as amended,” says Sharon B. Megdal, director of the University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center. “Over 80 percent of the state’s population lives in an AMA. Since the mid-1980s, we have carefully integrated Colorado River water into Central Arizona’s water portfolio.”

“Because we live in a desert, we must take these bold and creative steps,” Cooke says. “We have no choice. These challenges are getting harder, but because of our extensive efforts over the years, we continue to get better at it.”

Bout of drought

According to Dave Roberts, associate general manager of SRP’s water resources, Arizona has been in a prolonged dry period for nearly 25 years. Drought is not a foreign concept in an arid environment, but it’s helpful to understand the additional challenges it presents to our state in particular.

Since the bulk of Arizona’s population resides in Maricopa and Pima counties, rainfall alone is not sufficient to sustain a densely inhabited desert climate. Thus, fossil/groundwater and renewable water sources are essential.

“Before CAP was here in the early 1970s and brought fully online in the 1990s, we had an overdraft of water,” Cooke says. “It’s quite a bit different now, but the challenge with groundwater is certainly not over yet.”

SOURCE AZ BIG MEDIA  BUSINESS NEWS | 4 hours ago | ERIN THORBURN

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• Water Regulation
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