Interview with Grady Gammage - Central Arizona Project

Q. The Appropriation Doctrine, first-in-time, first-in-right, that water was kind of built
upon, do you think that’s going to survive in the future with the drought and
population
A. That’s interesting. That’s part of [what] this fight in Yavapai County is about. I
don’t really understand it exactly but that was what some of the argument was
going on about last time. No, but it will die not with a bang but a whimper. We
won’t even know that it’s really died. It’s not like it will be overturned by a court
decision or some kind of statutory change. It’s just that it will come not to mean
very much because price and delivery mean everything. The rights that are
represented by first-in-time, first-in-right will mean less and less over time.
Q. What do you see as Arizona’s future water challenges in the short term and then
in the long term
A. The rural growth issue is huge. We have got to come to grips with figuring out an
appropriate life style with that and appropriate water use footprint for how people
can and should live in the rural West. The West is the most urban part of the
United States in large measure because of water. Because we have to
concentrate water, it’s this concentrated force. And yet, now we’re all trying to
have our little ranchettes. I drove through mile after mile of these last week. We
have to figure that out. And it may be that water as a constraint to growth will in
fact be much more visibly felt in the rural parts of Arizona then it will in Phoenix.
People think that Phoenix is going to be constrained in its growth by water. I’m
Interview with Grady Gammage
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