THE FUNDAMENTALS: WATER
Arizona water shortage looms Arizona is going to run out of water. Well, not Payson: Two decades of effort have secured Rim Country’s water future. But everyone else is starting to feel a little panicked. Last year, a hearing of the House Agriculture and Water Committee chaired by State Rep. Brenda Barton (R-Payson) held in Payson highlighted the statewide problem — which served to emphasize Rim Country’s enormous advantage when it comes to securing an adequate water supply. “We will have to make some hard decisions,” Barton said. “We know that this is going to take a long time, but we want to have some short-term solutions to bridge from now to when we have the big projects completed.” She said Payson remains a model for the rest of the state. Local officials worked for 20 years to obtain rights to 3,000 acre-feet of water from the Blue Ridge Reservoir, enough to double the town’s long-term water supply. Payson then negotiated an agreement with the Salt River Project that AVERAGE DAILY controls rights to all the surface water in WATER USE: the Tonto National Forest and lined up Payson: federal grants and financing to build the 89 gallons pipeline. “The Blue Ridge agreement is very Phoenix: good for Payson and the Payson commu108 gallons nity,” said Barton. “We really should be Los Angeles: celebrating. It’s fabulous. That’s why I’m 123 gallons saying, it takes a long time to put these agreements together.” A report by the Arizona Water Resources Development Commission says that in coming decades the state’s annual water use will grow from about 7 million acre-feet to about 11 million acre-feet. An estimated 1.2 billion acre-feet remains stored in underground water tables, however, much of that water is too deep and too far from the areas that need it to solve the problem. A recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey concluded that the flow of the Verde River will decrease by 8,600 acre-feet annually in the course of the next century, mostly because of groundwater pumping. As a result, the river could go dry intermittently — as well as many of the groundwater wells in the area. Cities in the Verde Valley and the Salt River Project are in a protracted legal struggle with Prescott and Chino Valley, arguing that growth in those areas threatens to dry up the Verde River. Other studies have predicted a major crisis on the Colorado River, which drains half a continent and whose waters and reservoirs provide water to an estimated 40 million people in seven states. This winter, the Bureau of Reclamation warned that for the first time ever, it cannot deliver the full contract amount from the Colorado River to Arizona, California, Nevada and other states. The various water districts and states entitled to a share of the river currently use about a million acre-feet more than the river has provided in recent years. Projections suggest the shortfall could rise to a disastrous 8 million acre-feet in coming decades — which could cut off the spigot for Arizona, which stands in line behind California. Such a cutoff could cause a major water crisis in Phoenix and Tucson, both of which now rely on water from the Central Arizona Project.
FAST FACTS
This pipeline delivers some 11,000 acre-feet annually to the East Verde River from the Blue Ridge Reservoir atop the Mogollon Rim. The pipeline by 2015 will more than double Payson’s water supply.
10 | Move to RIM COUNTRY | 2014