With Colorado River cuts looming, Peoria commits $104 million to bolster water supply

As Colorado River cuts loom, the city of Peoria is moving to shore up its supply.

On Sept. 15, the Peoria City Council approved a $104 million contract with the Vidler Water Company to purchase roughly 176,000 acre-feet of long-term storage credits from La Paz County in western Arizona.

Peoria currently receives just over 34,000 acre-feet from the Central Arizona Project, but officials in the West Valley suburb said the CAP allocation is expected to drop by about 7,000 acre-feet next year. CAP is a wholesaler that provides Colorado River water to roughly 80% of the state’s population.

“We’re looking at possibly between 14% and 20% reduction in that allocation. And so, we plan to backfill it any way we can,” Melinda Whittington, water resources adviser for Peoria, told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Thursday.

The city said the deal is the equivalent of adding 1.5 million gallons of water per day to its portfolio for 100 years.

The water Peoria is buying is not groundwater

Peoria is the second Valley city to bolster its water supply through a deal with Vidler, a Nevada-based company that develops water supplies and stores surpluses in areas with limited resources. Scottsdale agreed to a much smaller purchase in June.

The water Peoria and Scottsdale are buying comes from long-term storage credits, not groundwater.

“They [Vidler] purchased CAP water in the ’90s and 2000s and stored that water at their underground storage facility out in La Paz County and generated what are called the long-term storage credits,” Whittington said.

Whittington said this distinction is important because Peoria is sensitive to groundwater issues in La Paz County.

“Particularly, because it comes from the Harquahala Irrigation Non-Expansion Area, people may think that it’s groundwater. This is not groundwater, this is legally stored CAP water,” Whittington said.

Peoria will have to build infrastructure to bring water from western Arizona

The purchase includes the 176,000 acre-feet of long-term storage credits along with 120 acres of former underground storage facility land, two wells and a pipeline.

Peoria will need to build the “turn-in” infrastructure required to extract the water and move it into the CAP system.

“What we’re going to be doing is pumping water from those wells, moving it through an underground pipeline, and then we’ll have to build what’s called a turn-in structure. So essentially, it’s sort of like the gate and the equipment to push the water back into the CAP canal,” Whittington said.

Peoria has to complete a National Environmental Policy Act review with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and CAP before it can build the turn-in.

Whittington said the city plans to include the project in its capital improvement program budget and expects the cost to be small compared to the Vidler deal.

The purchase is expected to close in October.

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