The big water-rights adjudication case called the “Gila River” that has been making its way through court for 30 years generated a new round of headlines this week when the Salt River Project asked a judge to cut to the chase at least in the Verde Valley and shut down what it says is illegal water use there.

Without a court ruling, the SRP cannot enforce its senior water rights until they are adjudicated, and its lawyers say that considering how long the adjudication case is taking, the Verde River, which is included in the case, could run dry before that happens. Phoenix and other cities in the Phoenix area are dependent on the river for a significant portion of their water.

SRP filed its pleading on April 26, the 30th anniversary of the case. The filing asks Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Eddward Ballinger to order five water users in the Verde Valley whose rights reportedly are junior to SRP’s to show cause why they should not be ordered to stop irrigating until SRP’s rights are fulfilled.

SRP has senior water rights in the Verde Valley. A lawyer who deals with water issues but did not want to be named said the SRP pleading is “huge” and predicted that if the judge rules as SRP has asked, the entire Gila River adjudication will fall apart because everyone will file a rights pleading and swamp the court, which then will not have time or resources for adjudication.

At SRP, Dave Roberts, manager of the Project’s Water Rights and Contracts Department, said the issue is pressing, and that people are taking scarce water who have no right to do so. “We filed those pleadings asking for these water users that are using water from the Verde River without filing any paperwork to acquire a water right,” he said. “We view them as hiding behind the Statement of Claimant they filed in the Gila River adjudication….

“Except for a handful of federal Indian claims, only a few of the 25,000 or so claimants have had their water rights determined. So we’re trying to bring to the attention of the court that there are many people out there who basically are violating state law by using water without getting a water right through the state, to the detriment of SRP shareholders.”

SRP filed the original case on April 26, 1974, to enforce its rights on the Salt River. In 1976 it filed on the Verde. Later the cases were consolidated into one large case, which was called Gila River because all of the tributaries of the Gila are involved. SRP had been suing unauthorized users individually, but that was tedious and expensive, and, Mr. Roberts said, at the suggestion of the state Land Department the Project made a general stream-adjudication filing.

SRP’s targets in this filing are five water users that include investment groups and subdividers as well as long-time landowners in the area. The users include Shields Ranch, Kovacovich Investment, Robinson & Campbell LLC, NBJ Ranch Partnership and Verde River Ranch LLC. Henry Shill of Shields Ranch told The Arizona Republic his ranch’s water rights were filed before SRP’s and he feels he has filed all the claims he needs to file. —