water

By Tom Buschatzke, Director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources and Ted Cooke, General Manager of the Central Arizona Project 

When U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman hailed the Drought Contingency Plans signed last year as “historic,” we wholeheartedly agreed. The plans were the product of years of discussion, negotiation and compromises among water users throughout the Colorado River Basin.

When 40 million people and some of the most fruitful croplands in the world rely heavily on a single source of water, it seems only natural to want to know as much as possible about the source.

Let’s face it: Arizona Water Awareness Month – which is now – is not exactly an attention-getter this year.

Precious water may be a fundamental building block of life as we know it, but in April 2020, other matters are keeping the minds of Arizonans occupied. In many households, that means keeping the kids safe… and busy.

In this data-heavy “Age of Information” in which we live, agencies like the Arizona Department of Water Resources constantly struggle with how to make information we collect more easily available to the public.

And, at the same time, we work to assure the accuracy of our datasets and to present them in a meaningful and useful way.

In the wake of the driest 16-year period in the known history of the Southwest, it seems fair to ask:

Has anything positive come of this dry spell? Anything at all?

The answer, of course, is… of course. Of course there are positives.

The general public, for example, understands (and appreciates) far more about the inherent value of water than we did just a few years ago. 

We have learned that even in the wettest of eras, fresh, clean water is an asset to be valued, protected and conserved, since its essential presence in a community is never assured for long.