Local opinion: Project Blue — a new myth and an old saw

and analysis of the writer:

Project Blue consultants have invented a new term. “Water positive” is their phrase for the multibillion-dollar data center proposed for land near the Pima County Fairgrounds. I have been researching water in the Colorado River Basin since 1969 and wrote my first op-ed piece for the Arizona Daily Star in the mid-1980s about Tucson’s water rates. The invention of this new phrase is an attempt to obfuscate, and to create the notion of reclaimed water supporting unbounded growth, a myth that has been soundly disproven. There are always losers in the water wars.

An old maxim about water in the American West that has stood the test of time is much more useful: Water always flows toward money and economic power.

Even the laws of gravity lose out in a contest over who gets water. It is likely that many elected leaders tilt favorably toward Project Blue because it purports to solve the City of Tucson’s budget problems. University of Arizona administrators are also facing budget shortfalls. The UA Vice President for Research, and its Chief AI officer, who recently wrote favorably about the project in the Star, are not longtime Tucsonans. With due respect, they have not lived here for decades to see monsoon rains dwindle and potential sources of new water supplies disappear.

As University of Arizona economist Bill Martin and I argued in the 1980s, Arizona farmers got it right money-wise, when they agreed to sign contracts for Central Arizona Project water, even though it was much more expensive than the groundwater they relied on. They saw how the water was increasing in value and based their decisions on rights to water in the long term (we called it “willingness to play.” Today, those farmers are receiving very favorable offers for their CAP water rights, to be paid for by urban residents. Controlling water supply into the future preserves opportunities.

We should not be giving those opportunities away to support a data center that will benefit relatively few and serve mostly people far away.

Another favorite western water saw of mine is, “Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting.” When push comes to shove, promises in the West have not meant much, even if they are backed up with compacts, laws, court decisions, and contracts. The 1922 river basin compact promised water resources for all seven states, but southern California’s growth was fueled for decades with Colorado River water that rightfully belonged elsewhere. Long after Arizona won a 1963 Supreme Court decision giving it a more just apportionment of Colorado River water, California has kept on using more than its court-decreed share. The CAP was supposed to provide Tucson with water security. But because Tucson is at the end of the Central Arizona pipeline, Tucson will suffer first when the river runs short.

I am greatly concerned that money and power will once again rob our future of water that could supply more long-term construction jobs and larger revenue streams. Here in Tucson, we should learn from our painful experience. We should say “no” to the newly concocted myth of “water positive.”