By Rusty Childress | Rio Verde
OPINION – Seven states share one river, and nowhere is the risk of that arrangement clearer than in central Arizona.
The Colorado River was never meant to support unlimited growth, yet the Phoenix metro area has expanded to more than five million people in a desert that physically supports far fewer. What made that possible was not hydrology alone, but semantics. From the start, groundwater policy and Colorado River deliveries were designed to work together, with groundwater rules assuming the river would remain a reliable backstop.
For decades, Western water policy has relied on language that sounds responsible while quietly separating decisions from physical reality. The most influential phrase is the “100-year Assured Water Supply.” In practice, it became a growth permission slip, allowing confidence to outrun capacity. This concept traces back to the Arizona Groundwater Management Act, which was written for a much smaller human footprint. No one imagined a metro area of five million people competing with agriculture, mining, and data centers for enormous volumes of water year after year.
A “100-year” supply was never proof of sustainability; it was an arbitrary planning horizon dressed up as certainty. Because the word “assured” did the heavy lifting, developers complied and cities approved permits while pushing risk forward. That risk is now visible, as state planning shows there is not enough water to support Phoenix as it exists today, let alone as it grows.
The consequences of this comforting language are now unavoidable. Phoenix grew because semantics made scarcity sound manageable. Responsibility now begins with letting our language match the desert’s physical reality.
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