Interview with Grady Gammage - Central Arizona Project

ationing water in Phoenix. I said, “You know we cut back on the farming.” We
told the farmers they had to live with thirty percent less water in the last couple of
years and we moved that water over to urban populations and it works fine. It’s
relatively easy not to plant crops sometimes. But if all that water migrates to be
urban water you lose that flexibility, that management flexibility over time.
Q. You mentioned the Gila River but not Fort McDowell and Salt River in Maricopa
County.
A. Right I was just talking about Pinal, that’s why. They’re not as big either in terms
of what they intend to farm and they didn’t get as much water in the CAP water
settlements. Did we talk about the Indian water settlements
Q. No, we didn’t and I want to move on to that. Did you ever think the Indians would
get so much water
A. No, I didn’t. Again when I got on the CAP Board I really didn’t know much about
the Indian water rights claims. When I was President of the Board I became a
real champion of trying to use CAP water to settle those claims even over very
heated opposition from some of my board members. George Campbell, rest his
soul was a great board member and a dear friend of mine but was just dead set
against the Indian settlements that we put into place right at the end of my time
on the CAP Board. It was a complicated issue that a lot of people had a hard
time understanding and I think a lot of people had the feeling as these
settlements got written that the CAP Board was deciding whether or not the
Interview with Grady Gammage
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