The Daily Agenda: It's a dry state

Wading into water wars ... We're going back in time, but how far? ... And is Kern on that puzzle?

Arizona’s dwindling water supply was one of the biggest stories of 2023, and although Mother Nature helped policymakers avoid a full-blown crisis last year, there’s still a lot of work to do in the upcoming legislative session. 

Gov. Katie Hobbs’ kicked off her term with a January shocker about how the West Valley is running out of water much faster than previously predicted, forcing restrictions on future home building in the Phoenix area that would rely on groundwater. A wildcat development horror story emerged after Scottsdale cut off water to the Rio Verde Foothills in January, sparking national headlines and leaving hundreds of residents without a water source. At the end of the year, Hobbs pulled together a commission of water experts, who delivered several groundwater policy recommendations at the end of November, including cracking down on “wildcat” developments that don’t have assured water supplies. 

While the majority of Arizona’s groundwater remains unregulated, the state made some steps toward the conservation of its largest renewable water supply — and groundwater regulation and conservation promises to be one of the main unifying themes of the upcoming legislative session as well. 

Our art intern, ChatGPT, was kind enough to put some clouds on the horizon in this otherwise very depressing depiction of our future.

It’s not all bad news: The lower-basin states relying on Colorado River water reached a much-anticipated agreement to conserve their water use in exchange for hundreds of millions in funding from the federal government. Arizona, California and Nevada agreed to save 1.5 million acre-feet of water in May, with the pressure of a more stringent proposal by the Bureau of Reclamation influencing the buy-in. 

And after an unusually wet winter, the state moved up to less stringent tier one restrictions from the tier two status it faced most of the year. The above-average precipitation brought running water to Arizona’s usually dry Salt River after the Salt River Project began releasing water as its reservoirs neared capacity, and as the Audubon Society puts it, “Phoenix Valley residents received a beautiful reminder that there is a river running through the heart of the region.” 

Still, the Colorado River situation is dire, and Lake Mead’s bleached bathtub ring is nature’s reminder that our water is running out.  

Full steam ahead:

Plans to tighten urban and rural groundwater regulations are likely going to struggle at the Capitol, to say the least. Several Republicans, including Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, don’t like the 100-year water supply rule for developers, and leaders of the legislative committees handling water issues have already balked at Hobbs’ plans for rural groundwater regulation. 

Democratic lawmakers and conservationists have urged Hobbs to abandon pursuits of getting the policies out through the Republican-controlled Legislature and instead focus on implementing them through executive order or administrative action.

But there are other, somewhat hopeful, developments on the horizon.

About $15 million worth of water conservation projects will start relatively soon after the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority approved eight proposals from a $200 million pool of money it’s awarding to cities, counties, tribes, public water systems and natural resource conservation districts. 

Meanwhile, state officials are working on a plan to turn wastewater into drinkable, purified water. After a month-long public input period, the department will likely unveil the next steps in a flush-to-faucet program next year. 

1864 or 2022?: The Arizona Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case that will decide whether a recent 15-week abortion ban is the law of the land in Arizona, or whether the pre-statehood law making basically any elective abortion a crime will govern the state. Justices seemed skeptical of arguments from opponents of abortion that when lawmakers approved the 15-week ban, they revert to the 1864 version of the law if Roe were overturned, Axios Phoenix’s Jeremy Duda writes. The justices didn’t give any indication of when they’ll rule. 

Maybe by next Christmas: Lawmakers are once again taking on the deregulation of home kitchens and the goods they produce after Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed the “tamale bill” this year and then promised to work on a new version in 2024. Republican Rep. Travis Grantham made a handful of small tweaks to the bill before reintroducing it. 

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Tamales are pretty expensive these days. Can you feed some hungry reporters this holiday season?

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If you’re denying you’re losing: The Navajo Times is continuing digging into the administration of Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren, while officials claim the administration “isn’t wielding toxic masculinity as a weapon. And his male staffers don’t use gendered attacks.” Reporter Krista Allen has two more pieces following up on her initial report claiming staffers “experience violence and abuse — from sexual assault to sexual harassment — and are now dealing with serious physical and emotional effects.” Meanwhile, the Navajo Nation Council still hasn’t voted on a measure to recognize same-sex marriages, despite recent attempts to do so, the Republic’s Arlyssa Becenti writes. 

Never say “your people”: As court battles drag on over a pair of voting restriction laws enacted last year, attorneys for Republican lawmakers want the court to throw out testimony from former Democratic Sen. Martin Quezada, who told the court about alleged racist remarks one of the bill’s sponsors, Republican Sen. Sonny Borrelli, said to him. The Republican lawyers argue they didn’t know he would testify, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. 

“If your people weren’t doing that, we wouldn’t have to bring these bills,” Quezada recalled Borrelli saying.

“He is either hallucinating or completely fabricating for political gain, period,” Borrelli responded, per Fischer. 

The border is complicated: After decades of kicking the problem down the road, federal officials are considering paying for repairs to the International Outfall Interceptor, a cross-border raw sewage line that brings about 12 million gallons of raw sewage from Nogales, Sonora, to Nogales, Arizona, every day, the Tucson Sentinel’s Paul Ingram writes. The water is treated at a wastewater plant in Rio Rico, but the pipe has long been degrading and causing environmental damage. Meanwhile, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is experimenting with robotic dogs, AI inspectors and other high-tech solutions as it combats staffing shortages, Axios reports. But electronic privacy groups complain it isn’t being transparent about how they’re using or storing the data on programs like this. 

Nature fights back: Three people were bitten by a coyote (or perhaps multiple coyotes) in north Phoenix near I-17 and Happy Valley Road over the weekend, the Arizona Game and Fish Department announced. There have only been 28 known coyote attacks on people in the Phoenix area in the past 26 years, the Repulic’s Laura Daniella Sepulveda reports. 

The shirtless, horn-wearing goon who stormed the U.S. Capitol, snuck into the Arizona House behind a pizza delivery person and spent the day screaming for “Rusty Cowers” (AKA former House Speaker Rusty Bowers) to come down and face him and now wants to represent Arizona in Congress would like for you to stop calling him the QAnon Shaman. 

Instead, felon Jake Angeli-Chansley would like to be known as “America’s Shaman,” Cronkite News’ Adrienne Washington reports. 

Anyway, he made an appearance on this January 6 puzzle that we really want to buy. (In case you were looking for the perfect Christmas gift for your favorite newsletter reporters.)