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The Salt Gila Pumping Plant, the sixth pumping plant in the CAP system, has 10 pumps with a total capacity of 2,840 cubic feet per second.
2022, is a big step, particularly for Arizona. It requires a reduction in use that is 2½ times greater than what we did to get to tier zero. But we are ready for that, too, because the decisions about what elevation would trigger tier 1, the size of the reduction in deliveries, and whose supplies would be reduced had already been made.
their buy-in. The key to reaching consensus was mitigation for the significantly affected lower-priority users, which involved water that was voluntarily contributed by higherpriority users and funding that was contributed by the state, CAWCD, and others. Mitigation is a temporary program that eases the effects over the first few years of shortage.
Jeff Kightlinger: You went through quite an elaborate process to get consensus on those plans. How were you able to bring that group of diverse stakeholders together?
Jeff Kightlinger: Please tell us about the 500+ Plan that CAWCD and the State of Arizona, along with parts of California and Nevada, recently entered into.
Ted Cooke: For about a year and a half, we had strong disagreements in Arizona, particularly between CAP—the junior priority holder and the one organization upon which all the consequences of the DCP were going to fall—and the state. But after a year and a half of wrangling, the state and CAP came together and co-led the statewide discussions. The talks included representatives from all sectors, including legislators, cities, tribes, nongovernmental organizations, leadership organizations, irrigation districts, and developers. From the original 200 participants, we formed a steering committee of about 40 people, and that became an effective tool for reaching consensus. We realized early on that we would not be able to get the legislature to take the necessary action without a broad consensus. We held these meetings in public, and the process garnered substantial media attention. People from throughout the state were engaged. We ultimately got nearly unanimous approval for the DCP in both houses of the state legislature and then took it to Congress, where the same thing happened. Then, we had to go home and implement the DCP, and that’s when the fireworks started. We knew that because of the priority system within Arizona and because central Arizona agriculture and the homebuilders and developers had the lowest-priority water rights, those groups were going to be the hardest hit. Those two sectors had lots of influence in the legislature and could effectively block the legislation, but we were ultimately successful in gaining
Ted Cooke: In addition to the specified reduction tiers, there is an adaptive provision of the DCP that requires additional actions if any monthly forecast indicates that Lake Mead may fall below a certain level over the next 2 years. We knew that condition would be met eventually, but it caught us by surprise when it was triggered in August 2021, which happened to be the same month when tier 1 was triggered for 2022. We quickly did some modeling to determine what additional actions would be needed, and we determined that it would take 500,000 acre-feet per year of additional conservation for the next 5 years. It took only 4 months to develop what became the 500+ Plan. So, while we were implementing a tier 1 shortage for the first time in 2022, we had to simultaneously implement the 500+ Plan. We’re still developing all the agreements to put the 500+ Plan in place for 2022 and 2023, the first 2 years of this 5‑year period. The understanding is that the actions we take this year and next are not going to be effective by themselves; we’re going to have to do more. Five hundred thousand acre-feet is the minimum savings that we need to meet every year from 2022 through 2026, in addition to the reductions required under tier 1 and whatever other tiers we hit.
8 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | June 2022
Jeff Kightlinger: So you have the 2007 guidelines, the DCP, and now the 500+ Plan, all layered on top of each other and effectively all expiring in 2026. What do you think a new agreement needs to look like in 2026? municipalwaterleader.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF CAP.
The Santa Rosa turnout is the largest in the CAP system.
