By Joshua Bowling | Arizona Republic
As Arizona officials laid the groundwork for the Central Arizona Project 50 years ago, they made promises that critics now say could imperil habitat, weaken river health amid worsening drought and cost taxpayers in a big way.
In a bid to secure votes in Congress for the CAP Canal, the concrete channel that supplies Phoenix and Tucson with water from the Colorado River, Arizona struck a deal in 1968 that would give New Mexico the rights to water at Arizona’s expense.
Now New Mexico wants to make good on the deal and claim as much as 14,000 acre feet from the Gila River before it flows into Arizona. The Central Arizona Project would replace the water from the Gila with water from its allocation of the Colorado River.
An acre-foot is enough water to serve two households for a year.
