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States deal for water Colorado River water to Phoenix and Tucson, David "Sid" Wilson has to factor into his planning what Nevada and the other states want. Wilson is the general manager of the Central Arizona Project, one of the last major water projects built on the Colorado. Completed in 1985, it allowed Arizona to use its full allotment of the river, and it provided the two major urban areas with a more reliable water source for future growth. As one of Arizona's Colorado River keepers, Wilson has faced Mulroy across innumerable tables, most often as an ally. Arizona banks water for Nevada and has sided with Las Vegas in the past. But Wilson admits the relationship is probably about to get more complicated. "Nevada has a real water - supply problem, but they don't want to go through the pain," Wilson said from his north Phoenix office at the CAP headquarters. "They want water from us and California. They're saying, 'We don't want to control growth,' but in this interim, they want to build on our supplies. It's important for us to help Nevada, but they have to step up to the plate. Its fine to pay a dollar a square foot to take up grass, but not if you're still building new houses down the street." Arizona brings its own problems to the table. More than 30 years ago, the state traded the senior priority on part of its river allocation in exchange for congressional approval of the Central Arizona Project. That means that if a shortage is declared on the river, Arizona must wait to take its full share of CAP water until California and Nevada are assured of their full supplies. Arizona officials say the CAP Canal wouldn't go dry overnight. If limits were imposed, Arizona would likely lose about 500,000 acre -feet of its 1.5 million acre -foot allocation, and that's not likely to occur before 2011, according to CAP calculations. But the risk increases if the drought deepens or turns out, as some scientists believe, to be a long -term climate shift. Even if the CAP flow shrank, Phoenix and Tucson wouldn't suffer right away. The state could absorb the first losses by shifting water from farmers, whose share of the canal has always been temporary. Publicly, the other states say they don't want to see the CAP lose any water. But Arizona has its own image issues when it comes to use of the Colorado River. While other cities have imposed drought restrictions in recent years, Phoenix has only suggested conservation, secure with ample CAP water, groundwater and in -state surface flows from Salt River Project. Wilson recently returned from a meeting of the seven river states, one of several this summer to discuss drought planning. At the meeting, Colorado officials suggested Arizona might be wasting water by banking billions of gallons from the river each year in underground aquifers, a process that involves spilling the water on the ground at a designated recharge site, allowing it to trickle into aquifers, where it can be pumped out later. Arizona began banking water this way nearly a decade ago as a way of using its entire river allocation. Wilson listened to the Colorado representative and then said, in effect, fine, Arizona will stop recharging if Colorado agrees to restore the CAP's senior priority on the river. "It got very quiet in the room," he said. Wilson said Colorado wants Arizona to leave water on the river instead of recharging it and then pumping groundwater. That, Wilson argues, would just transfer the pain and create different shortages. Some Arizonans have wondered why Phoenix and its suburbs aren't requiring even basic conservation as the drought worsens. Arizona water managers say the state's urban areas have practiced water conservation for nearly 25 years by controlling use of groundwater and linking water supply to growth. Other cities, for example, don't require a guaranteed 100 -year water supply for a new subdivision as is required in Phoenix, Tucson and Prescott. Page 4 of 7 http:// www. azcentral .comispecialslspecia1061 articles /0722colorado- conflict.html 7/27/2004