1. Arizona’s Water
Crisis: A Survey
Kirsten Engel
2024 Candidate,
Arizona’s 6th Congressional District

2. The Water Crisis in Arizona is the
result of many long-standing problems
• We live in a desert, but refuse to accept the reality
of what a desert is – a place of little water!
• Climate change is driving our current drought and
will only get worse.
• Pie-in-the-sky proposals to pipe water across the
U.S. will not solve our water crisis. We need to
adopt practical solutions – many exist!

3. Water in Arizona
The Colorado River
Other Arizona Surface Waters
Groundwater

4. Arizona’s Water Supplies

7. Colorado River Crisis
Arizona is now in a 20+ year drought driven by climate change which will only get worse.
The water and power of 40 million people reliant on the Colorado River is at risk.
The federal govt has asked states to reduce 2-4 million acre ft of water – so far they haven’t

8. Colorado
River Basin

9. Some critical numbers and dates:
• 1922 Compact among the basin states - the upper
(Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico) and the lower
(Nevada, Arizona, California)
• 7.5 million acre feet (MAF) per year for upper basin
• 7.5 million acre feet (MAF) per year for lower basin
• In 1968, Congress further divided to: 4.4 to CA; 2.8 to AZ; 300,000
to NV.
• 1944 Treaty with Mexico
• 1.5 MAF per year
• Total allocated: 16.5 million acre feet per year
• Doesn’t account for claims by all Colorado River tribes
(only half have had claims settled)
• River’s average flow since 2000? 12.3 MAF. Woah!

10. Current Colorado River Shortage
Arizona’s cuts: 592,000 million acre ft, or 20% of Arizona’s total water allocation.
California’s? Zero.

11. Colorado River Options
• Feds want to reduce water use by all basin states by 2-4 million
acre feet (or 15-30 percent) in next year.
• States had failed to generate plan to do so… so….
• April 2023: Feds proposed 2 main options:
• Impose cuts across basin states based on seniority
(most beneficial to California which has most senior rights)
• Impose equal percentage cuts upon all states
(hardest on California as California has the biggest allocation)
• 2 days ago! Lower Basin states (AZ, CA, NV) came up with plan to
reduce 3 million acre ft by 2026 (and 1.5 MAF by 2024), most of
these reductions being compensated with Inflation Reduction $$.

12. Groundwater: Regulation in
populated areas; zip in rural areas

13. Groundwater being sucked dry!
Source: Bruce Babbitt and Robert
Lane, Saudi Firm has Pumped
Arizona Groundwater for years
without paying. Time to pony up.
Aug. 11,2022.
https://www.azcentral.com/story
/opinion/op-
ed/2022/08/11/saudi-firm-
fodomonte-pay-arizona-
groundwater-use/10271103002/

14. Water contamination with
“forever” chemicals: PFOS/PFAS

15. Arizona’s surface waters are in
trouble!
• Surface waters provide drinking
water, wildlife habitat, flood
control, groundwater recharge,
recreational opportunities (Az has
a $20 bill/yr tourist economy)
• Thirty-five percent of Arizona’s
natural perennial flowing rivers ha
ve been altered or lost altogether
as a result of dams, diversions, and
groundwater pumping. - The
Nature Conservancy
• Over 90 percent of Arizona’s wet
areas are ”ephemeral” washes
that flow only in response to
rainfall and are not clearly subject
to federal or state regulations
preventing unauthorized pollutant
discharges or filling.

16. Other Arizona Surface Waters

17. Solutions (a partial list!)s
• Reduce agricultural water use by:
• Installing drip irrigation
• Switching to low water-use crops
• Increase water reclamation and re-use
• Build water storage facilities/ build and fix infrastructure
• Conserve water
• Achieve net zero water use in new construction
• Complete tribal water settlements
• Protect and monitor groundwater use across entire state!!!