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o Rio Salado Development along Salt River could aid ground-water recharge The Rio Salado Project can regulating ground water require be something more than a that the supply be augmented. recreational, commercial '"The Colorado River Basin and industrial development on states want the federal govern- the banks and in the bed of the' ment to underwrite the costs of Salt River. . two programs, the first to seed It could help supplement the clouds to increase rainfall and the Valley's water supply by recharg- other to improve watershed man- ing the ground-water table with agement to increase runoff when.. flood and treated waste water. rain does fall. . Part of t~e master plan for the . Studies indicate cloud seeding rl~erbed bemg developed ~y t~e could increase rainfall by 1.3 mil- RiO Salado Development DlBtrlct lion acre-feet per year runoff by calls for building lakes and an equal amount. '____ strJ=~ederson, chairman of the Gov. ,Bruce. Babbitt has pro- district's board of directors, said posed .mportmg ground water the lakes could serve as basins from remote parts of th~ state to throngh which the ground-water supplement water suppbes. table could be recharged. Water basins in undeveloped A study by the Army Corps of areas, such as Butler Valley in La Engineers in 1981 said the Salt Paz County, could be planned for River is a prime spot for recharg- depletion to supplement urban ,ing ground water. supplies, Babbitt said. In California, the Orange Another p0B8ible way of in. County Water District has run a creasing the supply is to buyout ground-water-recharge program non-Indian farmers along the since the 1930.. In 1959, it began Colorado River who have rights buying imported Colorado River to river water. The water then water from the Metropolitan could be sent to central Arizona Water District of Southern Cali- through the CAP aqueducts. fomia for this purpose, Orange Importing water from the Pa- County artificially recharges cific Northwest and Canada or about 200,000 acre-feet of water towing icebergs from Alaska in a normal year. Of that, about down the West Coast to boost 10,000 acre-feet is treated waste Western water supplies also have water. been discUSBed, but are not Before a recharge program is oonsidered feasible in the foresee- likely to get started here, addi- able future. tional studies would be necessary, Sen. Henry Jackson, D- Wash., and the question of ownership of quashed efforts to begin studies recharged water would have to be of importing Pacific Northwest solved. Arizona law does not deal water by inserting an amendment with this question. into the 1968 CAP authorization Congress is considering a law law banning for 10 years any to begin a national experimental study of interbasin transfers of program of ground-water re- water to augment Colorado River charge, The legislation would supplies. Jackson had the amend- provide for two experimental ment renewed for another 10 sites in Arizona, one in the years in 1978. Phoenix area and the other in The North American Water Tucson. and Power Alliance is the most Ground-water recharge is just comprehensive of a number of one pollIIible method of augment- plan. developed during the 1950. ing the water supply to bring and '60s to deliver water from Arizona's water use and availabil- Alaska and Canada to the 48 ity into balance. contiguous states, The cost was The federal law governing con- estimated then at $80 billion with struction of the Central Arizona the promise of delivering 58 mil- Project and the state statute lion acre-feet of water a year. - ~ ~ C' i.:.