Am I exaggerating when I say that
what's happening on Lake Powell Lake
Mead right now is a 5 alarm fire?
No, you're not exaggerating at all.
And when you listen to folks
in the water community,
they're raising the alarm just as
much as anyone elses. Right now,
that was the Arizona
Republic's Joanna Allhands.
With a dire warning on Sunday Square
off way back in May 2 months ago,
the water shortage in Arizona and the
West was entering a dire new phase.
Unexpected cutbacks in our water
allotment from the Colorado River
were fast becoming a fact of life.
Enter Governor Doug Ducey
in the Arizona legislature.
In response to our water crisis,
they passed a $1 billion plan to
quote secure our water future.
Will a billion dollars ensure we have
a secure source of water in the future?
Does this plan meet the moment Joanna,
all hands of the Arizona Republic is
back with us two months later for an
update on the water situation and her
analysis breakdown of this water plan?
Welcome back to square off.
Thanks. Yeah, it feels like ancient
history. Two months ago, right?
We're in a different place.
Two months ago and we'll get to that.
Different places in a second.
I just want to kind of set the
terms for viewers and just remind
us again why is the Colorado
River so vital as a water source?
Yeah, well, so it's slightly less now,
but historically it's been about
40% of our state's water supply.
So much of the water that comes
in through central Arizona.
Not all of it, but a lot of it
comes through the Colorado River
through the Central Arizona project.
Canals here.
And that's why it's such a big deal.
And so you made that.
Comment about the five alarm
fire two months ago seems to me
from reading the news reports,
years and others.
It's a six alarm fire,
A7 alarm fire right now.
I don't know how many more alarms
we can get, but if if we could find
some more then yeah the the fire
department is should be on the scene.
We've got a huge structure fire here.
OK, let's set aside the metaphors
and get to you know what that means
in terms of how much water or how
much less water Arizona might get
in the next three to six months,
right? So the reclamation
Commissioner Camille Tuten said
during a recent Senate hearing.
That the entire basin.
So that's all seven states,
not just Arizona.
We are going to need to cut 2 to
4,000,000 acre feet of water,
and that is a ginormous amount of
water just to put it in perspective.
2,000,000 acre feet is enough water
to cover the entire city of Phoenix
in more than six feet of water.
It's a lot of water, wow,
and we're going to have to come up with that.
Not only.
And as a huge amount of water,
we're gonna have to come
up with it by mid August
come up what does come up with it means
it's not like we have to sign a check
right? We're gonna have to
figure out a plan to use that
much less water by mid August.
A plan. Wow, and I hear experts
using the term Deadpool.
Regularly now a term they wouldn't
go near just a few years ago.
Why is Deadpool so significant?
Deadpool is scary because that
means that the water levels in
the reservoirs of Lake Mead and
Lake Powell are now too low.
They're below the intakes that the
water cannot flow through the dam
and cannot go down the Colorado
River. All right, let's bring in the
governor and the legislature there.
Bipartisan response here.
Some of the bullet points the state will
spend a billion dollars to find new water.
Sources to conserve and
bolster existing sources,
and there will be a water
board doling out the money.
This major legislation was introduced
on the 2nd to last day of the session,
had last minute amendments and
virtually no public hearings.
Yet it passed almost unanimously so.
The big question before we break it down,
does this plan meet the moment
we're in what you just described?
Well, it's not gonna do anything for the
two to four million acre feet of cuts.
However, that breaks down and however much
that we're going to have to have for Arizona,
that's going to come in the matter of weeks.
This money? It's we're still going
to have to get board members up and
figure these kind of things out.
This is going to take months, maybe a year.
Who knows, before any of that
money could even start flowing.
So what we're going to be facing
in the next few weeks?
This isn't going to do that.
However, it's money.
It's money that will help,
and I certainly would not look
a gift horse in the mouth.
And you've said this isn't
really a billion dollars either.
What is So what is it?
So basically the billion dollars
will be broken down over three years,
so there's 334 million
that's coming this year.
And granted, there's a bunch of
different funds that they set up so
I know this gets really complicated
and confusing because there's a bunch
of different funds for a different
bunch of different pots of money.
There's money from last year.
That the legislature allocated so that
money also is kind of rolling over into this.
But yeah, it's not a full
billion dollars this year.
It's going to come over three
years if it comes.
Not that I'm saying that the legislature or
the governor may not push for that money,
but just looking at where the
economy may be going,
I'm not sure that in the next two or
three years we'll have that much more.
There's been a lot of talk about it.
The great Savior, Trucking or
piping water here from Mississippi
desalinization plant down in Mexico.
Does this get us closer to that
reality and that reality even help
us in the short term or long term?
It won't help us in the short term.
Those things would be years,
probably decades away.
If they happen right now,
it's all the the pipeline thing
has been studied previously,
but hasn't been in a decade.
And at that time it was still, you know,
something that they determined was
just not going to be feasible,
so it never moved forward.
The desalinisation stuff in Mexico were
still very early on in the discussions.
And it wouldn't be that that
water would be necessarily piped
up to Arizona from Mexico.
Basically, that water would be
desalinated and used in Mexico,
and that whatever water that they
would normally take from the Colorado
would then be free for others to use.
Presuming we don't hit Deadpool,
and there is no water to take.
Well, there is a conservation
piece for individuals homeowners
who can get some money.
Perhaps it's sometime in the future
to do some things that might conserve
at the real kind of grassroots level.
Potentially, yeah, and it's going to
be up to you know, cities, counties,
that sort of thing to apply for the money
to actually get it to the homeowners.
But there is language in the bill that
allows for potentially turf removal.
You know some other things that
are kind of larger scale like
aquifer storage and recharge.
And that sort of thing
too. You've talked about what lies ahead,
the potential the water cuts that
appear to be looming for Arizona?
The allotments?
Who would be most affected?
All of us we're you're. You're
not going to escape that much water.
I mean, depending on how
these cuts could play out,
it could hit every citizen of this state.
Every farmer, every homeowner.
It depends. I mean, granted anybody
that doesn't get Colorado River water,
it probably won't hit them directly.
But for those that get Colorado River water,
yeah, it could potentially hit you.
Alright, and on that note,
Joanna Allhands.
Thank you so much for your analysis.
Really appreciate it.
You should check out Joanna's
blog at azcentral.com.
Good to see you again. Thanks.
You can see more of our stories
on Arizona's water shortage and
the mega drought on our website.
Just head to 12 news.com/waterwars.