Interview with Grady Gammage - Central Arizona Project

water that could be used for agriculture and that’s certainly what the largest block
of water which is the water down south will be used for because they’re going to
try to bring lots and lots more acreage back into agricultural uses. But then the
water will still be there when we need it in times of drought as I was talking about
a minute ago. And it resulted in our being able to pay the federal government
much less money, even than we thought we owed them as opposed to what they
thought we owed them. So for a bunch of reasons, I thought it made sense. But
there were other people on the Board who were upset by it and felt like we were
giving half of Arizona’s water to a very small number of people. When we were
going through that process there was one manager in central Arizona who was
upset about the Indian settlements whose quote was, “We shouldn’t give this
water to the Indians, it’s our birthright”. Struck me as little odd they were here
first and the river was flowing when they came here. So if you want to argue
birthright, I’m not sure that’s the best argument for the Anglo populations of
Arizona to make.
Q. Although it is ironic that when the first plans were made for the Central Arizona
Project it started off being for agriculture, then that sort of changed to urban and
then it ends up, half of it going to the Native Americans.
A. Yes, and it happened incrementally how much was going to the Native
Americans over time. I think part of the concern was at the time we did the big
“brick” settlement was just another increment and even more of it was going to
Interview with Grady Gammage
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