Water rights safe - for now, but vigilance needed

Arizona's navy is still on the job protecting its water allocations, the state's water guru reported to a gathering of community leaders Thursday.

It's just that the boat is scraping the bottom of Lake Mead where it's stationed, said Herb Guenther, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

In a more serious vein, Guenther assured his audience that the state isn't apt to run out of water, but it might become a great deal more expensive.

Guenther was the luncheon speaker for the Southwest Arizona Futures Forum Spring 2008 session. Seventy people representing a cross-section of the community came together in a town hall-like setting to wrestle with the topic "Water: Making Every Drop Count."

The state has grown and developed in direct response to the availability of water, going back to U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) projects in the early 1900s, Guenther said. As of 2006, the state's population stood at 6.2 million, a number that is expected to double in the next 15 years.

Will there be enough water for all those people? Likely, Guenther said, but it's only because of long and hard- fought battles.

There was "dancing in the streets," he said, when representatives of the governors of the seven basin states that share the Colorado River water signed the forbearance agreements finalizing the historically significant 7 States Agreement on Dec. 14, establishing guidelines for a prolonged shortage.

"That was the first time in 85 years all seven basin states agreed on major Colorado River issues," he said. But even with the success, "we must keep our guard up."

That was a warning repeated by four panelists who spoke about local water rights and challenges.

Most of Yuma County's water rights are held by the irrigation districts to irrigate farmland, said Wade Noble, an attorney who represents agriculture's water interests.

He said he's frequently asked how safe and secure the area's water rights are. The answer is the "best on the river," he said.

But that allocation is under frequent attack by those who say agriculture is a high water user and perhaps that water should go to a higher and better use - meaning for thirsty central Arizona or California's cities or casinos in Las Vegas.

"When they come for our water," Noble predicted, "they will come not with lawyers but with Brinks trucks."

Eventually, those trucks will carry enough money to buy local water rights, he said.

"There's no water problem money can't solve," agreed Roger Gingrich, water resource coordinator for the city of Yuma.

His biggest concern for the city is the perception that residents here waste water. There likely is some truth to that perception, he said, explaining that even the city's population is at its lowest level in July and August, those are the two months of the highest water use.

"I don't think we're taking more showers," he said. "We're overirrigating."

In the midst of gloom over the lingering drought and increasing demand for water, there is optimism.

According to Guenther, this year's snowpack is 147 percent above normal, the first time in 10 years that it has been above average. In some areas the snowpack is even higher. "That won't fill our reservoirs, but it will give us a respite from the drought."

Another encouraging word came from Jim Cherry, area manager for the USBR.

Exactly a year ago, he said, the long-idle Yuma Desalting Plant was started up for a 90-test run to determine whether it would still run, verify the cost to operate it and demonstrate the plant's use of new technology.

The plant was built in the late 1980s and early 1990s to remove salt from water sent to Mexico to meet a U.S. treaty obligation with that country. But except for a brief test phase, the plant hadn't been operated because there was adequate river flow.

With the lingering drought, there has renewed interest in the plant, Cherry said. "The question is how it could best serve."

The plant performed well with its trial run last year, in fact better than anticipated, he said. However, it costs a tremendous amount of money to run, just to "to dump bottled water" into the river.

While the Law of the River - the many regulations governing the allocation of Colorado River water - needs to be respected, he said, creative solutions need to sought. "We can't shackle our thinking."

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FORUM, A HISTORY

The Southwest Arizona Futures Forum was formed about four years ago by leaders from several sectors of the community concerned about the need for collaborating on issues caused by the area's explosive growth. It holds two sessions a year, based on a town hall format, where panels meet to discuss a selected topic of concern and come up with recommendations for solutions

The steering committee is comprised of chair woman Patricia Ware, vice chairman Doug Mellon and members Cindy Baker, Dr. Robert Cannell, Wayne Benesch, Robert Pickles, Col. Ben Hancock, Tom Tyree, Mark Watson, Carol Coleman (designee for Col. Johnny Bullington) and Shelley Mellon.

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Joyce Lobeck can be reached at jlobeck@yumasun.com or 539-6853.