{"id":441533,"date":"2026-08-23T22:40:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T22:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/441533\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T22:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T22:40:07","slug":"arizona-seeks-california-water-amid-colorado-river-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/441533\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona seeks California water amid Colorado River cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arizona is pursuing two projects to bring up to 200,000 acre-feet of new water into the state by tapping supplies in Mexico and California, which faces its own severe water shortages.<\/p>\n

Whether either project can overcome California\u2019s technical, regulatory and political hurdles is far from certain. One environmentalist called one proposal \u201csomewhat delusional,\u201d while the head of a powerful California water agency described the other plan as \u201ccreative and doable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The efforts come as the state\u2019s groundwater supplies remain overstretched and its Colorado River allocation has been substantially cut. On Friday, the federal government finalized rules that require additional cuts<\/a> to Arizona\u2019s allocation, although they weren\u2019t as severe as feared.<\/p>\n

The first of the two projects, both backed by a subsidiary of Canadian water and infrastructure company EPCOR and its partners, would attempt to capture up to 100,000 acre-feet of water annually from the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers during flood years.<\/p>\n

EPCOR proposes capturing that floodwater, sending it down the California Aqueduct to groundwater storage projects in the southern Central Valley, and then pumping it back into the aqueduct for delivery to Southern California water agencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those agencies will deliver it to homes and businesses in the region. Arizona would end up with some of the Colorado River water supply currently held by the Southern California water agencies.<\/p>\n

The second would study a \u201ctoilet-to-tap\u201d system to treat wastewater from the San Diego area to drinking-water standards. The treated water, primarily derived from sewage from Tijuana, Mexico, would be sent back to Mexico for municipal use.<\/p>\n

In exchange, Arizona would receive rights to as much as 100,000 acre-feet annually of Mexico\u2019s Colorado River water supply.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One acre-foot equals nearly 326,000 gallons, enough to supply at least three average homes, according to the Arizona Department of Water Resources.<\/p>\n

The board overseeing the Arizona Water Infrastructure Finance Authority<\/a> [WIFA] approved spending $7.3 million to develop initial plans for the two water projects. As many as five others, including three desalination plants, could be approved for initial study funding next month.<\/p>\n

Eric Averett, who leads the Kern County Water Agency in the southern Central Valley, which is home to several groundwater storage districts and the largest water bank in the state, said he had not heard of the Arizona proposals. That\u2019s surprising, given that his is one of the most powerful water agencies in the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Averett, who called the San Diego-Tijuana sewage treatment project \u201ccreative and doable,\u201d added that the project \u201cseems like good water management.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[T]hey\u2019re taking wastewater effluent, and they\u2019re delivering it into Tijuana, and then they\u2019re taking, by virtue of this exchange, Colorado River [water],\u201d he said. \u201cThat is actually what I would define as creative, good water management, and that also may be the low-hanging fruit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Depleting water supplies<\/p>\n

Arizona is normally entitled to 2.8 million acre-feet of Colorado River water each year but has been taking cuts of about 512,000 MAF in recent years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The state will now lose 760,000 acre-feet, dropping next year\u2019s allocations to just over 2 million acre-feet. About half is delivered to Phoenix and Tucson areas via the Central Arizona Project canal; the rest is used by farmers and towns along the river.<\/p>\n

California, meanwhile, is facing similar groundwater depletion and other shortages, including a smaller cut to its Colorado River supplies. Facing dropping groundwater levels, a state law enacted in 2014 required the creation of local groundwater management agencies and charged them with cutting use or recharging aquifers so that they come into balance within 20 years.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s led to a scramble to cut pumping and find ways to recharge depleted aquifers.<\/p>\n

Arizona isn\u2019t the first to try to tap any excess flow in the two California rivers: The State Water Board is processing \u201cmany pending applications on central and northern California rivers, where a party is working through the requirements to try to obtain a permit,\u201d according to a staff statement provided by a board spokeswoman. No details were immediately available.<\/p>\n

California has also set a goal of finding as much as 9 million acre-feet per year of new water supplies. In Arizona, WIFA aims to import between 100,000 and 500,000 acre-feet per year of new water \u2014 an amount that may increase.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Low-probability, high-cost project\u2019<\/p>\n

During a presentation to the WIFA board, an EPCOR representative said the company had had initial talks with state and local officials about its plans, although it did not identify which entities it spoke with.<\/p>\n

Staff with both the California State Water Board and the California Department of Water Resources, however, said they were unaware of the proposal.<\/p>\n

Averett said tapping the two rivers would be a highly complex effort filled with regulatory and other pitfalls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They include demonstrating to the State Water Board that there is actually excess water and then getting the rights to it. Such a project would also require environmental reviews and permits, finding partners to ship and store water underground, and locating an entity to take it for eventual use and swap it for Colorado River rights.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI would never say anything\u2019s laughable because with enough resources and commitment people are able to do some amazing things,\u201d Averett said in an interview Friday. \u201cBut you have to acknowledge that the process requires a number of steps that take, in this case, years and maybe even decades to put it in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Averett added that he considers the excess water plan \u201ca very low probability, high cost project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Potential \u2018political maelstrom\u2019<\/p>\n

Technical and legal hurdles aside, tapping California\u2019s water supply<\/a> would likely be politically difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cI may be completely wrong, but I see the political maelstrom of \u2018Oh wait a sec, you\u2019re going to take water off the Sacramento or San Joaquin that is critically needed in the Central Valley for Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, and move it to Arizona?\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Averett said. He added that the response would likely be \u201cOver our dead bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n

EPCOR\u2019s proposal says it can tap excess flows during flood years using an expedited permitting system enacted in California after recent flooding and use it for groundwater recharge. In the past 20 years, the proposal said, five years yielded flood levels that could be tapped.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their proposal said as much as 14.4 million acre-feet of excess water was potentially available from the two rivers during the 2023 high-water year, although not all of it could be diverted.<\/p>\n

Two longtime staff members at the Friends of the River, an environmental organization that works to preserve and restore California\u2019s rivers, streams, and watersheds and advocates for sustainable water management, questioned whether there was actually excess water or whether Arizona had the political ability to tap the state\u2019s water supply.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you define \u2018excess water\u2019 as well, in some years, water flows out of the delta in excess of the minimum salinity control standards and other water quality standards, \u2026 then yeah, there\u2019s excess water,\u201d said Ron Stork, a senior policy analyst with the group who has decades of experience working on both river protection and flood safety issues. \u201cThe question is, how do you capture the excess water?\u201d<\/p>\n

Competition for the excess water is the other big issue, Stork said.<\/p>\n

\u201cArizona is not the only people who are scrambling for water,\u201d he said, noting that the southern San Joaquin Valley alone has a 2 million acre-foot per year overdraft that must be addressed. He also pointed to California\u2019s \u201cutterly unattainable\u201d goal of finding 9 million acre-feet more per year of water.<\/p>\n

Gary Bobker, Friends of the River\u2019s lead policy analyst and spokesman, was just as blunt.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe point is that the state of California considers itself to be facing severe water supply deficits for all purposes,\u201d Bobker said. \u201cAnd the idea that you start banking water in California to ship it off to other states just seems kind of delusional.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arizona is pursuing two projects to bring up to 200,000 acre-feet of new water into the state by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[174942,7,9,8,174943,174944,5912,174945],"class_list":["post-441533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-arizona-water","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-epcor","tag-epcor-water","tag-san-joaquin-valley","tag-wifa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}