Those tougher negotiations to assure the long-term sustainability of Arizona’s Colorado River supply start now. Working together, Arizona is ready for them.

Small water providers are feeling the pressure to upgrade equipment and infrastructure under terms of the state’s Drought Contingency Plan.

While parks dot the urban and rural landscapes of Arizona, the critical connections these places have to the Land and Water Conservation Fund may not be as clear.

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.

Environmental groups are trying to halt a plan by the Bureau of Land Management to lease out more than 4,000 acres of land near the Petrified Forest National Park for oil and gas exploration.

Insisting the state made a "commitment,'' a Central Arizona lawmaker and farmers he represents is making a last-ditch pitch for $20 million in taxpayer dollars to drill new wells and water delivery canals.

The Colorado River in Arizona is an integral part of our communities, history and cultural heritage, and our way of life. We all have a moral obligation to take care of our natural resources and protect God’s creation. As we face a future of diminished water supplies we need to ask each other and those who govern to embrace an ethic of planning and collaboration to lead us into a sustainable water future for our families and future generations.

President Trump on Tuesday signed the plan outlining how Arizona and other Colorado River basin states will divide up the limited water that’s now available.

With another deadline missed Monday, the head of the Bureau of Reclamation is now looking for the governors in the states in the Colorado River basin to tell her what they think she should do to keep water levels from dropping even lower.

The Imperial Irrigation District wants $200 million for the Salton Sea, a massive, briny lake in the desert southeast of Los Angeles created when the Colorado River breached a dike in 1905 and flooded a dry lake bed.