It’s Friday, which means it’s time for the Journalists’ Roundtable where we discuss Arizona politics. This week, “Arizona Horizon” host Ted Simons was joined by Howie Fischer from Capitol Media Services, Camryn Sanchez from KJZZ Radio and Mark Brodie from KJZZ.
The topics discussed this week:
- Colorado River proposal
- Andy Biggs running mate, Sine Kerr
- Court nullifies GOP voucher
Howie Fischer: “It was never expected to look good for Arizona. We’ve got this whole issue; we won’t go through the history. The upper-basin states said, ‘Why would we take cuts?’ That left the lower-basin states, California, Nevada, and Arizona, to say, ‘Here’s what we’re willing to take as our share.’ When the upper-basin states said, ‘We’ve got an idea,’ and pretty much it’s the lower-basin states and twice as much as the lower-basin states were willing to offer, and out of that it’s like a 20% cut, but Arizona, being the junior water rights that they have on these things, is taking an even bigger cut; that’s where the trouble comes.”
Camryn Sanchez: “This is not a surprise. The idea of coming back to the table every two years is nothing; that is a minimal amount of time, especially for a plan that affects so many states and so many things have to be considered. It means they are never leaving the table, and the lower-basin proposal is not ideally conceived of when they were thinking, ‘Okay, the water rights are going to expire.’ The idea was hopefully that all seven states come to an agreement on their own and the federal government wouldn’t have to step in; nobody has to go to court and would be a compromise that everyone would be satisfied enough with. The lower basin idea is not that. It is the federal government coming in and taking a really big cut; it’s going to make a big difference.”
Mark Brodie: “There are more details, more specifics to come from the federal government on this, and I think there is some hope that the deal that Arizona, California and Nevada negotiated earlier this year might be reflected more in some of those deals. To Camryn and Howie’s point, this is not unexpected, and the Central Arizona Project is going to take big cuts; that’s the canal system that brings water to the Phoenix and Tucson areas. The one interesting thing about the two-year coming back is we’ve seen how well the seven states negotiate over the past several years and how they have to do it every two years or basically never leave. It will be interesting to see, once these go into effect, does that kick people into gear and maybe help push the negotiations along a bit?”
