Phoenix (AP) — Arizona Governor Doug Ducy on Wednesday provides a bill to provide $ 1.2 billion over three years to promote long-term water supply to the desert state and implement more immediate-effect conservation efforts. Signed.
Since the state implemented the groundwater conservation program in 1980, legislation launched over several months during the just completed legislative session is considered to be of paramount importance.
Climate change and nearly 30 years of drought have forced this move as Arizona faces a reduction in the Colorado River’s water supply and more looms. The canal system of the Central Arizona project is already running low on water from the river to Metro Phoenix, Pinal County and Tucson, and federal officials are soon warning of even more drastic cuts.
“These challenges required us to act,” the Republican governor said at the signing ceremony at the historic parliamentary amphitheater. “So today we are taking action to do what Arizona men and women have hired us — for the success of our state today, tomorrow, and for future generations. I will position it. “
A law advertised by Ducey in January to allow the Department of Water Resources to oversee changed investments during the session is now being implemented with a new $ 1 billion budget for ambiguous state entities. You are giving authority.
The organization, called the Water Infrastructure Finance Bureau, will be an independent body that oversees the new Board of Directors and parts of the Legislature.
Democrats have had a majority of Republicans and governors agree to add $ 200 million for protection. Ready-to-use money for both agricultural efficiency and urban water usage reduction.
“Our state faces the reality of climate change, over-allocation of the Colorado River, and reduced groundwater,” said Senator Rebecca Rios, a minority leader in the Senate. “The bill will ultimately create a financial structure to support the diverse needs of both urban and rural Arizona.”
House Minority Leader Rep. ReginaldBolding has checked the list of measures that the new Water Savings Fund can pay: groundwater recharge, drought resistant landscaping, watershed protection, efficiency improvements, and rooftop rainwater harvesting.
Long-term investments range from empty pies to conservative ones. They funded canals and pipelines to move floods from eastern Kansas to southern Colorado to Arizona, and to replace some of Southern California’s wastewater treatments and river supplies in that state. Includes an initial plan to provide.
Ducey began the year promoting a large new desalination plant to boost the state’s water supply, but Wednesday’s official statement did not mention it. Earlier that day, on KTAR Radio, he would sign a contract to build a likely plant in Mexico and use water trading to further free the Colorado River by the end of January’s term. Said he wanted. For Arizona. The plant can cost more than $ 5 billion.
Republican Rep. Gail Griffin called the law “historic” with the aim of not only increasing water supply to the state, but also recharging groundwater aquifers and reducing water usage for later use. I called.
“This is an action plan, not just sitting on the shelves. We’re going to take it in and do great things,” she said. “We have the money to bring new water to Arizona. We have the money to work on the best management practices in our county, our city.”
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This story has been updated to fix the pipeline moving floods from eastern Kansas instead of western Kansas.