By Jeff Wendt | YourValley
The Cave Creek Town Council on Tuesday night terminated its contract with Harquahala Valley Landowners LLC to purchase water rights to help the anticipated shortage the town will be seeing in 2027.
The council unanimously determined there were too many unknown costs in order to import, clean and transfer the water to the town through the Central Arizona Project.
The town would have received 500 acre-feet per year for 100 years at a price of $11.25 million. In October, the town placed an earnest deposit of $50,000 to do its due dillegence on the project. With the termination, the town will receive the $50,000 earnest deposit back.
With town staff and state water lawyers, it was determined there were many features of the project that were still unknown, including operational costs, land management costs, entitlement costs and other needed information, utilities director Shawn Kreuzwiesner said in his presentation to the council.
