“The amount of water contemplated in the agreement compared to the problem of overallocation (of water) in the Colorado River is very small. It’s less than 1%. But if that 1% could be directed to where it is most needed it could make a material difference,” said Kathryn Sorensen, the Kyl Center’s research director.
“It’s a great example of collaboration and innovation, but it’s not going to make a material difference to the resiliency of the Colorado River,” Sorensen said of the new agreement.
As the feds continue to diminish the amount of CAP water Arizona can divert from the river, a deal with San Diego County “would give us a viable buffer,” said Wegner. “Any water is going to be valuable water. It’s not everything, but it was never intended to be everything.
“There is no silver bullet that is going to replace all the Colorado River water,” he said.
Concerns about affordability
The idea of interstate water transfers has its critics, for sure.
In Arizona, Sandy Bahr of the Sierra Club says if interstate water transfers to Arizona “become an excuse or makes people feel that we can just continue with business as usual, just keep sprawling and slapping up data centers, then it won’t be helpful in the long run.”
“Who will be able to afford that pricey water? Data centers?” said Bahr, president of the club’s Grand Canyon chapter.
Between such transfers and the efforts by big companies to privatize water by buying up water rights in agricultural valleys west of Phoenix to import supplies into urban areas, “we are concerned about affordability for the average person,” Bahr said.
In California, activist Everts said he wonders how long the river water Arizona buys from the San Diego authority will last before it, too, is cut off due to continuing drought. While Wegner notes that California’s river water will hold out longer because that state holds a much higher priority by law for delivery during shortages than Arizona, Everts notes that how Reclamation will ultimately divvy up the river water remains completely unknown.