The Central Arizona Project holds its monthly board meeting at its headquarters in north Phoenix, beginning at 8:30 a.m. “The board of CAP is still concerned about the issue of signature,” Terry Goddard, a board member, said on Wednesday.
The Central Arizona Project operates a 336-mile canal that transports water from the Colorado River to Maricopa, Pima, and Pinal Counties, and it has an elected, 15-member board representing those central Arizona counties.
“We still need to have our place at the table,” Goddard said.
The board is authorized to levy one property tax on the three counties of up to 10 cents per $100 of assessed value, and another property tax of up to 4 cents per $100.
In the most recent public clash over this issue, in mid-November, the Department of Water Resources argued that only the department has the legal authority to represent the entire state of Arizona.
“The state’s authority is not up for sale,” Nicole Klobas, an attorney with the Arizona Department of Water Resources At the latest DCP Steering Committee meeting, which took place on November 29, board member Karen Cesare presented a “Friendly Amendment” that drew criticism from State Senator Lisa Otondo and ADWR Director and Steering Committee co-chair Tom Buschatzke.
Both of them penned letters to DCP Steering Committee members on Monday, pointedly criticizing an offer by the Central Arizona Project in the amendment to pay for water from the Colorado River Indian Tribes.
Then, last Friday — three days before Otondo and Buschatzke sent their letters — Margaret Vick, special counsel for water resources to the Colorado River Indian Tribes, wrote an email to Ted Cooke, general manager of the Central Arizona Project and co-chair of the Steering Committee.
Since the Friendly Amendment was presented the day before, she wrote, some stakeholders were “concerned” that the Colorado River Indian Tribes’ water would not remain in Lake Mead.
The following day, after Otondo’s and Buschatzke’s letters had been made public, Cooke wrote an email to Buschatzke, copying the entire CAP board and steering committee.