Fight for water rights just beginning

In a column for AZCentral, Linda Valdez writes that the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District was not created to raid water from other counties, but that's what's happening.

Mohave County Supervisor Lois Wakimoto says water speculators bought up farmland so Colorado River water allotments can be transferred to central Arizona.

CAGRD grew out of the sound water management policies embodied in the 1980 Groundwater Management Act. It created management districts in urban counties where developers must demonstrate an assured 100-year water supply before building.

In these areas, groundwater is managed to prevent long-term depletion – but that can limit growth. Enter the Central Arizona Project, which brings Colorado River water to allow those areas to grow in spite of groundwater limitations.

“Arizona unwittingly created a situation for water rights speculators to buy up land with Colorado River water rights,” says Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute.

Wakimoto says that’s what’s happening in Mohave County, where river water historically used by farmers will be bought by CAGRD under a plan that Mohave County and area cities are fighting.

Porter says: “I feel sure that was not in anyone’s mind when CAGRD was created.”

But CAGRD, which has a legal obligation to find water for its members in central Arizona, “disrupts the orderly universe” of the groundwater law, says CAP board member Terry Goddard, who will be “at least one vote against the Mohave County transfer” when it comes to the board for final approval.

CAGRD’s mandate to find water for central Arizona’s growth puts rural western Arizona at an unfair disadvantage.

“We are getting bullied by people who have more money and feel the need to grow Phoenix and Maricopa County,” says Wakimoto.

READ: Why central Arizona can raid everyone else's water - and it's all legal