Interview with Grady Gammage - Central Arizona Project

Q. Talking about Nevada again, there’s been some talk that in the Water Compact
that Nevada got little water. Some people have said that maybe that should be
reopened and renegotiated. What are your thoughts on that
A. Well, there could be benefit to that from Arizona’s standpoint. We are the junior
right holder. One of the prices that I’ve always understood that Wayne Aspinall
from Colorado exacted for funding of the CAP is that we have to be behind
everybody else. That’s not fair. The urban areas should have equivalent priority
it seems to me. It’s not fair to take water away from people in their houses in
Phoenix and say give it to people in their houses in San Bernardino or
something. So there could be significant benefit to us in doing that. Having said
that, I don’t think it’s very likely. I think it’s too complicated. It took too long the
first time. There are too many stakeholders. Most of the water buffalo, water
players are afraid to reopen it for fear that the anti-growth and environmental
forces, which they believe are out there, are conspiring at all times. I’m not sure
if that’s true but that’s the way water buffaloes tend to think, would wind up
getting a lot of the water and using it for lurminnows or willow flycatchers. So
they’re reluctant to reopen it. California, I think, would be reluctant to reopen it
because they got so much water. It seems to me difficult to imagine negotiating
something like that again.
Interview with Grady Gammage
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