Katie Hobbs and Andy Biggs, the Democrat and Republican nominees for governor, have wildly different plans for Arizona’s water future. That means the choice voters make this November will point the state in one of two approaches when it comes to managing the state’s water supply: conservation or augmentation.
Whichever candidate wins will have a great deal of control over Arizona’s water future over the next four years — including representing the state in the next round of Colorado River negotiations in 2028.
The governor also directs the state Department of Water Resources, and has the power to accept or reject water-related state legislation coming out of the state Legislature.
Hobbs campaigns on water
As the incumbent, Hobbs hasn’t accomplished much on the subject legislatively. Water is one of a number of issues where she has butted heads with the Republicans who control the Legislature.
But in campaign ads, Hobbs has touted directing efforts to better manage Arizona’s water supplies through executive actions.
“For decades, outsiders have been stealing our resources. And those before me didn’t protect our water, so I tackled the problem,” Hobbs says in one of her ads.
The ad references Fondomonte, a Saudi Arabian farming company that pumps rural Arizona groundwater to grow alfalfa. Early on in her four-year term as governor Hobbs cancelled some of Fondomonte’s land leases, which ultimately halted groundwater pumping in rural Butler Valley in western Arizona.
Groundwater conservation
In the past four years, Hobbs has vetoed dozens of Republican water bills and pushed for strategies to more stringently manage and conserve Arizona groundwater.
“Doing our part on water conservation is how we can prove to the rest of the Colorado River users that we're doing our part in conservation and it gives us leverage in these negotiations,” Hobbs said. “We can't just keep relying on Colorado River water without conserving. We have to conserve. We have to do all of the above.”
Conservation at times came at the expense of growth and development in parts of the Valley.
When Hobbs first took office in 2023, she released a report from the state water agency warning that groundwater levels in parts of the Phoenix metro area were dangerously low. Under her supervision, the Department of Water Resources effectively blocked new home construction in the West Valley suburbs by determining the water levels were too strained to issue certificates of 100 years of assured water supply.
Republicans like Biggs accused Hobbs of being anti-business and negatively affecting Arizonans by enforcing a housing moratorium. And earlier this year, ADWR lost a court case over its actions, which ended the moratorium.
Biggs has generally spoken against the conservation efforts pushed by Hobbs, vowing to take a new direction if elected. Going forward, Biggs said what Arizona needs is more water availability assessments.
“No, I don't think it means we need more conservation laws,” Biggs said. “I think it means we need more understanding of the hydrology of it but also we’re going to need to have a more accurate measure, so I don't think you need new laws to do those two things.”
Hobbs vehemently disagrees. She said water conservation is pro-development in the sense that it’s gotten the state to where we are today.
“What good are the studies if we're not going to use the data in the studies?” she asked. “It's a nonsensical solution. I mean, it's saying you're doing something without really doing something, and undermining the really strong protection that we have that's allowed us to continue to grow.”
Under Arizona’s current laws, there are a handful of groundwater basins across the state encased in Active Management Areas, where groundwater pumping is restricted to some degree. Most of those AMAs were established in the 1980 Groundwater Management Act.
But Hobbs’ administration took the unprecedented step of establishing brand new AMAs in the Willcox and Ranegras Plain groundwater basins over the last few years.
The AMA framework is specifically designed for urban areas like Phoenix and Tucson, so both Republicans and Democrats agree that a type of rural groundwater management area would be better than imposing AMAs in rural areas, like Willcox and the Ranegras Plain.
But GOP lawmakers and Democrats have been unable to come to an agreement on rural AMA alternative legislation. The main disagreement was over how much groundwater pumping should be allowed in a rural groundwater protection area — which is the most important aspect of the proposal.
Biggs on groundwater
Biggs claims Hobbs isn’t a strong enough leader on water in general and blames her, at least in part, for Arizona not getting a better deal in Colorado River water negotiations by not being more involved earlier on in the process.
Biggs also bashed Hobbs for vetoing Republican water bills. He said the problem Arizona has with groundwater supply is not having good enough infrastructure to pump more of it out.
“I know people say, ‘well, maybe we should use less groundwater.’ That's not going to help us. We’ve got a massive supply of groundwater. We just aren’t able to pull it out and we aren’t able to use it and get it where it needs to be,” Biggs said.
Hobbs said even in the wake of upcoming Colorado River cuts, eliminating groundwater protections would move Arizona in the wrong direction.
“I am not interested in relaxing our state's groundwater protection. I mean, we have some of the strongest groundwater protection in the country with a 100-year assured water supply,” Hobbs said.
Biggs’ vision: Desalination
Biggs is in favor of turning his focus to increasing the state’s water supply.
That’s a sharp contrast with Hobbs, who throughout her four years as governor has leaned away from desalination and other augmentation proposals in favor of water conservation efforts.
When Hobbs was elected in 2022, Arizona had just taken a key step toward building a desalination plant, thanks to the efforts of former Gov. Doug Ducey. Under Ducey’s leadership, the state’s Water Infrastructure Finance Authority was set to receive $1 billion for water augmentation projects over the course of three years. That was four years ago.
In her first year in office, Hobbs chose not to give the first $333 million to WIFA, which would have likely been used to get a desalination plant in the works. She didn’t restore that funding in the last three years either.
Hobbs said Ducey had the cart “way before the horse” with his desalination plans. Ducey met with an Israeli company called IDE, and laid the groundwork to contract with them to build a desalination plant on the Sea of Cortez in Mexico.
But, Democrats objected to what they called backroom dealings with IDE, which Mexico had not agreed to. That plan fell apart, with the Mexican governor of Sonora pledging never to work with IDE, and WIFA starting the solicitation process for proposals from scratch.
“We're not anywhere close to having a specific project in the works,” Hobbs said of desalination.
Because Arizona isn’t on the sea, the desalination proposals that are most often floated involve the state helping to build a plant in either southern California or Mexico. Then, Arizona would either build a pipeline to bring the desalinated water into the CAP, or trade for a share of California or Mexico’s allocation of Colorado River water.
WIFA is still soliciting augmentation projects, but they’re moving slowly. Former Director Chuck Podolak said it’s hard for the agency to solicit legitimate proposals without money on hand to pay for them.
Hobbs said desalination isn't off the table for her, but said “we're not anywhere close to having a specific project in the works.”
She also hasn’t taken any steps towards opening the Yuma Desalting Plant, which Biggs said he’ll do. The Yuma plant was built in 1992 and designed to purify salty agricultural runoff. But the plant has been used only twice.
Biggs said he wants