It didn’t take long for the completion of the Drought Contingency Plan to create value to Arizona and the Colorado River Basin.

rizona will need to bring the same quality of leadership and creative problem-solving that produced the DCP success story when water stakeholders resume work on the other pillars of a sustainable water future: protecting groundwater in both urban and rural areas, starting the regional process of re-negotiating the 2007 Interim Guidelines, and finding collaborative ways of conserving water while benefitting Arizona’s rivers and streams.

Despite much fanfare over Arizona’s Legislature passing and Gov. Doug Ducey signing drought plan legislation Thursday, the Department of the Interior is stepping in because federal officials say the drought plan isn’t done.

After months of drought plan negotiations and as the deadline for Arizona to produce an internal agreement on water reductions nears, the state’s water interests have nothing to show for their efforts yet.

I applaud Governor Ducey’s and former Governor Babbitt’s public statements of support for Arizona’s adoption of the drought contingency plans (DCP), expressed last week. Arizona’s water future depends on careful conservation, management, and collaboration to ensure that all of our communities are able to plan well into the future. This leadership is a valuable and essential part of how we get to a more sustainable future for the Colorado River basin.

As the Central Arizona Project celebrates the 50th anniversary of the federal act that authorized the massive water project, Arizona is still locked in complicated conversations about how the state will move forward on water issues.

Much work has been done and much will continue to be done – but the sooner we have the drought-contingency plan in place, the greater the benefits we will all reap via a plan that is acceptable to all Arizona water users.

If you want to glimpse the future of a city or state, all you need to do is look at how it’s managing its water supply.

Amid worries that crucial multi-state water agreements are beginning to erode due to ongoing drought, representatives of seven Colorado River basin states are meeting in Las Vegas this week.

The director of the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association told a Senate subcommittee Tuesday that there is no “silver bullet” to the problem of rising demand for water from the Colorado River.