The state of Arizona is experiencing a paradigm shift. We spent the last 30 years taking as much water off the Colorado River as possible to keep it away from California. We wisely stored that water underground in our aquifers as a hedge against future shortage on the Colorado River.  Now, the waters of the Colorado River are not only fully subscribed each year, but over-allocated compared to the true yield of the river. The result is a structural deficit on the river and the now-familiar bathtub rings we see in pictures of Lake Mead.  

California now lives within its 4.4 million acre-foot allocation and the strategy of pulling all of our water off the river no longer serves Arizona well. The future is one in which some of the water needs to stay on the river behind Lake Mead some of the time to protect all Arizonans from falling elevations and shortage declarations. The discussion at hand is fundamentally about how much water should be left on the river, and who ultimately gets to make that decision.  These are important and difficult questions with very technical pros and cons, as well as sensitive legal and policy implications. The decisions ultimately reached will affect nearly every person in Arizona in some way.

If these questions were easy, if there were still low-hanging fruit that could be picked, we could all declare victory and go home. Rather, the solutions available to us are technical in nature, incremental in size, and politically difficult to achieve. It’s good that the discussion is robust, uncomfortable, and at times contentious because it means that we are addressing the necessary issues and that different perspectives are being vigorously represented. It is through exactly this type of open process that the best decisions will be made for the people of Arizona and the future of the Colorado River.  

No one does water better than Arizona. We are capable of coming together to solve these difficult issues to the benefit of the entire state.

— Kathryn Sorensen is director of city of Phoenix Water Services Department.

___________________________________________________________

The views expressed in guest commentaries are those of the author and are not the views of the Arizona Capitol Times.