Four states that also get Colorado River water say CAP keeps too much for Arizona
The agency that runs the $4 billion Central Arizona Project is being accused of manipulating Colorado River reservoirs’ operations to suck out more water for its Tucson, Phoenix and Pinal County customers.
The accusation came in two letters in the past few days from representatives of four Upper Colorado River Basin states, the federal government and the Denver Water Dept. They say CAP’s approach threatens a Western water supply serving nearly 40 million people. It also threatens the harmony that has marked relations among the seven basin states since they approved guidelines to run the Colorado River’s reservoirs in 2007, they say.
Under criticism is CAP’s practice of limiting how much river water it conserves each year, in order to prop up Lake Mead’s declining reservoir levels. The CAP has resisted pressure from other water agencies in Arizona to boost its conservation beyond about 200,000 acre-feet a year, enough to cover that many football fields a foot deep.
