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As water supplies from the Colorado River continue to dwindle, farmers, mining executives and municipal leaders are setting aside old divides to confront a shared crisis: how to secure Arizona’s water future before it runs dry.

“Water is the road that leads to every aspect of life, public health, and about our own sustainability,” Tucson Water Director John Kmiec said during the University of Arizona’s annual Water Resources Research Center conference last month.

Kmiec said real progress in water management happens when utilities, universities, government, nonprofits and the private sector collaborate globally. He said Tucson Water has partnered with the university to leverage regional technologies, revive energy efficiency practices and develop science-based policies that affect the Tucson water industry.

“By working with academic institutions, we gained access to cutting-edge research and workforce,” Kmiec said.

Additionally, Tucson Water has proposed new water fee adjustments that the City Council will hear and vote on next week.

Customers in unincorporated areas of Pima County could potentially see a 16–23% increase in rates. Kmiec said this is due to the higher operational costs Tucson Water incurs when delivering water to areas outside the city of Tucson.

He said Tucson Water consulted financial and rate-setting experts to explore differential rates, which could result in a 5-cent increase to 15 cents per cubic foot for the water conservation fee and a 2-cent increase to 15 cents for the green stormwater infrastructure fee.

“Most of that is to keep pace with the cost of inflation, not only in building these projects, but also in maintaining them,” Kmiec said.

Outside of municipalities, water also affects agricultural trade. Last year, more than 24.5 million pounds of fresh fruits were sold across the border, totaling about $17 billion, according to Allison Moore, executive vice president of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas.

The association, established in 1944, ensures North America’s access to produce grown in Mexico.

“Water is the reason that so much on this Earth exists,” Moore said. “Water is a challenge across the world, you have not only availability of water but quality of water that you use in all kinds of applications.”

She said water is essential not only for growing food, but it also shapes food policy, trade and communities at both local and state levels.

In Mexico, where water is scarce, food is grown in protected environments and structures that allow farmers to minimize their use of water and pesticides, maximize the use of fertilizers and mitigate weather. Moore, who joined FPAA 25 years ago, said Mexican farmers were managing water use even before greenhouse production expanded.

“There was already an awareness that the reservoirs they were using were a finite resource,” she said.

Despite farmers' careful water use, challenges remain with cross-border reservoirs and tariffs imposed during the Trump administration.

Mining is another industry that relies on water, with Arizona accounting for 70% of the United States’ copper production, said Sandy Fabritz, director of water strategy for Freeport-McMoRan, a copper mining company that operates seven open-pit copper mines across Arizona and New Mexico.

“I’m not going to sit here and ignore the fact that mining has a bad history,” Fabritz said. “But nowhere today can you produce copper more efficiently, environmentally, effectively and more sustainably.”

Fabritz said the company also leads global projects focused on community development and environmental stewardship.

“We all have a role to play in developing secure, long-term water supplies,” she said.

When it comes to collaboration, each sector has to be transparent, define new approaches and ideas, and follow through, Fabritz said.

“The stakes are too high and the opportunities too valuable to remain silent,” said Tucson Water’s Kmiec.

Arilynn Hyatt is a journalism major at the University of Arizona and Tucson Spotlight intern. Contact her at arilynndhyatt@arizona.edu.

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