Like Having Your Dad Die

The most fightin' words in Arizona are any kind of threat to the state's crucial water supply. So verbal revolvers were drawn and brandished all over the state when word came last week of President Carter's elimination of 19 water development projects from the fiscal 1978 budget. What bothered Arizonans most was that the biggest of these canceled undertakings was the $1.6 billion Central Arizona Project, which was scheduled to bring water from the Colorado River to the parched southern portion of the state by 1985. "Without CAP," said Wes Steiner, executive director of the state's water commission, "all agricultural production in Arizona would have to stop." Warned a pecan and cotton grower, Keith Walden: "Tucson will be covered up with sand and become a ghost town within a hundred years." Said Jack Francis Jr., co-owner of the state's biggest cotton-gin firm: "The news was like having your dad die when you're 17. You just aren't ready for it."

Indeed, to outraged Arizonans, Carter's cutback seemed like a death sentence--and it could not have come at a worse time. Because of the drought, Gila Valley farmers--who would have benefited from CAP--are receiving only 10% to 20% of their usual water supply, and have had to reduce production drastically. The long-range outlook is even more alarming to officials. Ground water, which furnishes 40% of the state's needs, is being pumped out at a rate five times faster than it is being restored.

Without more "liquid gold," Arizonans fear that they will not be able to sustain either their $1.2 billion-a-year agricultural output or their fast-growing population. In the past five years, the number of state residents has risen by almost half a million, to 2,270,000--the biggest percentage increase in the nation. This year alone, the population could jump another 5% as more and more Easterners settle in the state--fleeing the harshest winter they have ever known for the bounteous life of the Sunbelt.

Adding to Arizonans' ire is the fact that CAP is 30% funded and 25% completed. More than 44 miles of canals, river crossings and tunnels have been built; a $900,000 intake dike and a thermal-fired generating plant have also been erected. If work is stopped, 650 engineers and construction workers will be laid off. "That's a damn poor way to create jobs," complained Democratic Congressman Morris Udall, who was on somewhat shaky ground in making the statement; he had not had CAP in mind when he signed a letter with more than 70 other Congressmen earlier this month urging savings in unnecessary public works projects.

Even among Arizonans there are those who support cutting off funds for CAP. They claim that aside from damaging the environment and inundating an Indian reservation, the project will divert more water than the already over-tapped Colorado River can spare. Rationing, they insist, is the only solution. Indeed, the most ardent defenders of CAP admit that Arizonans use water as if they were living in a rain forest, not the desert. Wes Steiner blames the migrants from the East, who "want their green lawns and Lake Erie in their backyard." People who come to Arizona, he says, "are going to have to accept the fact that they're in the desert." For the first time in state history, the legislature is considering restrictions on the use of water.

But most Arizonans are supporting a spirited counterattack on Washington. Last week Governor Raul Castro met with a group of state leaders to form a task force to lobby for a reversal of Carter's decision on CAP. Though that decision is to be reviewed by a commission representing several federal agencies, the ultimate review will be conducted by Congress, which can vote to restore the funds. Considering how devoted that body is to public works projects--both good and bad--CAP has more than an outside chance of surviving the Carter shootout.

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