Yuma-area farmers are fighting proposed water cuts, saying they prioritize Tucson and Phoenix even though farmers should have first dibs.
Tony Davis Yuma-area farmers are fighting a proposed set of Colorado River water use curbs, saying they favor urban users in Phoenix and Tucson even though the farmers have higher-priority rights to the water.
The large majority of crop acreage in Yuma has what's called Priority 3 water rights to the river, whereas the Central Arizona Project has Priority 4 rights, the lowest available, he said. "It's not like you keep planting fewer veggies in the garden. It’s that the garden at some point dies." The other proposal, from California, would divvy up cuts based on which users have the highest priority, under water rights allocations dating back a century or more. Since the Central Arizona Project — which delivers drinking water to Tucson and Phoenix — ranks last on the priority list for river water during shortages, the bulk of the California plan's cuts would fall on Arizona.
Environmental impact statement pendingThe U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is reviewing both sides' proposals as it prepares a supplemental environmental impact statement onh how to carve up the river's dwindling supplies. "As a result, water lawfully and contractually committed to senior priority users would not be delivered, and junior priority users, as a result of an unlawful super priority … would take water wrongfully denied to senior priority entitlement and water rights holders," Noble said.
It should be treated with the same priority level a water user has under the user's existing entitlement, he wrote. Hopefully, when the bureau publishes its draft environmental review of the various water use proposals,"There will be some shaping of the plan that recognizes what the realities of water use in the basin, particularly in the Lower Basin," Noble said.
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