Early Arizona Politics and the Central Arizona Project
June 9 @ 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm MST
by Carolyn Classen, blogger
Tuesday, June 9
6:00-7:15 pm
Zoom: <https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85177149862?pwd=5KWZOZvkblSoTU6JBmujVp98fOq4Jb.1>
Decisions made long ago structure the contemporary debates among the Colorado Basin states today. This presentation explores early politics internal to Arizona to explain some of our current situation. Despite benefiting from early federal investments in dam building and “reclamation,” between 1923 and 1944, business interests in the state of Arizona opposed approval of the 1922 Colorado Compact governing use of the Colorado River and saw California as their enemy.
Concerns about the adequacy of flows began even before the Compact, but became a most unwelcome discussion in the 1940s when the state’s leaders acquiesced to the federal government’s terms in order to fund plans for the Central Arizona Project.
Knowing early history helps explain why our state took so long to receive and utilize its full share of Colorado River water, and why users of the Central Arizona Project are so vulnerable to shortages on the river. This presentation will conclude with some information about Arizona’s recent strategies for dealing with shortages.
SPEAKER
Julia Fonseca is a hydrologist, now consulting as Madrean Resources. While at Pima County Regional Flood Control District, she was the project manager for various recharge feasibility studies in the Tucson area, which culminated in the Lower Santa Cruz Replenishment
Project for CAP recharge and the Marana High Plains effluent recharge project. Later, she helped to develop County programs for riparian protection and restoration, and compliance with the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act. She is currently writing a book about George Edson Philip Smith, Tucson’s first home-grown hydrologist.