Opinion contributor: We have time, but we need to move now on big Arizona water projects
What’s right is his view that most of Arizona’s near-term water challenges can be handled with a dose of market-based pricing, agricultural reduction, moving water around and regulatory reform.
In 2011, I concluded that a realistic forecast for an ultimate population in the Sun Corridor based on existing renewable supply was somewhere around 12 million. Given the increasingly negative data on climate change, Colorado River decline and a leveling off of demand efficiencies, the 2021 number is much less optimistic: more like 8.5 million.
But here’s where Robb gets it wrong. Saying we can keep growing for another decade or two simply isn’t a sufficient answer to the drumbeat of negativity about our state’s future that populates media coverage from the East and West coasts. Such an augmentation plan must be developed at the state level. The hydrological challenges of Arizona outside of the Sun Corridor are more serious and more immediate.