Published in cooperation with Arizona Water Commission and Office of Arid Lands Studies, University of Arizona. / Introduction: In many communities, irrigated agricultural areas exist within a few miles of the wastewater treatment plant of a large municipality. At such locations a dual transfer of water may be effected, in which the treated wastewater would be used for irrigation and the high quality irrigation water supply would in turn be shifted to the municipal system for domestic use. An investigation of the technical, economic, and legal aspects of such an exchange system has been completed recently, with the Tucson region as a case study. The research was done at the University of Arizona under an allotment grant from the Office of Water Resources Research, U.S. Department of the Interior.

Published in cooperation with Arizona Water Commission and Office of Arid Lands Studies, University of Arizona. / INTRODUCTION: Arid lands will undoubtedly experience increased energy stresses in the near future because of increasing internal populations and external energy appetites. Many arid lands are underlain by vast quantities of energy fuels, but geothermal energy is one of the few environmentally acceptable energy alternatives for arid regions based on criteria of water consumption, efficiency of energy production and pollution characteristics. This report summarizes the published findings of the authors' search of existing data related to Arizona geothermal resources and of geological investigations undertaken by them to provide a comprehensive guide for exploration and to suggest further studies.

Published in cooperation with Arizona Water Commission and Office of Arid Lands Studies, University of Arizona.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D. - Government)--University of Arizona. / Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation describes and explains how water related regulatory agencies function in Arizona. The study's major focus is the policy process of water agencies. It is a comparison of the legal powers of agencies and their actual behavior in regard to those powers. A major conclusion of the study is that administrative laws and procedures (policies) in Arizona are basically the result of a variety of interest group activity which is directed primarily toward the state administrative bureauracy. The interest groups which are the most active and those that have established clientele relationships with water related regulatory agencies are associations which are concerned with water issues. Although farm-ranch and conservation oriented associations have historically had the greatest impact on water management and control by state agencies, their monopoly has been challenged in the sixties by commercial and municipal interests which (as domestic, commercial and industrial water consumption increases) are becoming more concerned about the supply, quality and cost of water. As population increases in the two metropolitan areas of the state, and as that concentration of population is reflected in the reapportionment of the state legislature, it is likely the status quo will eventually change in favor of those interest groups existing in the metropolitan areas. An incremental approach to the formulation of water law and to the establishment of regulatory functions for state agencies has resulted in a decentralized and fragmented administrative structure for regulating the management and use of water. There are fourteen agencies which have been given varying degrees of power to regulate the use of water. Although there are overlapping areas of jurisdiction between the fourteen agencies, most of the agencies' areas of jurisdiction are narrowly defined. The agencies with the broadest area of jurisdiction are the State Land Department and the Arizona Corporation Commission. The study of activities of Arizona water related regulatory agencies shows that the proliferation of water associations has placed such demands on the state government that it must assume a more vigorous role in water resource management. There are two major problem areas which only the state alone can solve-1-a revision of water law in Arizona and administrative reform. The most logical method of accomplishing these two tasks is through the establishment of a state administrative agency which is given sufficient power to investigate, plan and coordinate the management of water usage in the state of Arizona. The commission form of administrative agency which has been used in Arizona would be readily adaptable to such an agency. A commission form would present the opportunity for a broad representation of water interests in the state. In the last decade the political feasibility of such a solution (establishment of a central water agency) has substantially increased. The political status quo has been affected by such events as the reapportionment of the legislature, the passage by Congress of the Central Arizona Project, an increase in the domestic consumption of water and the ever increasing variance in the pumping and natural recharging of ground water. Also within the last decade, there have been state governmental changes which have had an impact on administrative regulatory agencies. Examples of these changes include the lengthening of executive terms of office and legislation establishing a more centralized budget and a state personnel system. It is too soon to assess the magnitude of the impact of the changes discussed above. It is clear, however, that the political environment in Arizona is becoming more favorable for the state's regulation of the use of water.

The City of Tucson and surrounding metropolitan area are located in Pima County's Santa Cruz River Valley in arid Southern Arizona. The U. S. Bureau of Census defines the Tucson S. M. S. A. as including all of Pima County. The Tucson S. M. S. A. has experienced rapid population growth since World War II and, in January, 1967, had an estimated population of 335,000. Precipitation in the Santa Cruz Valley is slight, averaging only ten inches a year. Agricultural irrigation accounts for almost seventy per cent of all water use. The sole source of water in the Santa Cruz Valley, except for a little reuse of sewage effluent for irrigation, is groundwater. In recent decades the rate of groundwater withdrawal has exceeded natural recharge and the water table has steadily declined. It is the opinion of many that unless water is imported soon, a water shortage crisis may develop; but this is not unanimous opinion. Water management in the Santa Cruz Valley is highly decentralized. The City of Tucson, several school districts, an irrigation district, a federal airforce base, several industries, nearly 100 private water companies and hundreds of private individuals "mine" groundwater. Also, several state and local agencies perform regulatory functions related to water use, Many of those involved in Tucson area water management believe this decentralized pattern precludes proper water management and that it frustrates planning for assurance of an adequate, long-term water supply for the community. The study concludes that the Tucson area has a water shortage problem, but not a critical one, and that the pattern of water management is highly decentralized, Major reasons for this decentralization are that (1) water can be readily and easily obtained almost anywhere in the Santa Cruz Basin simply by sinking a well and withdrawing groundwater, and (2) that there is no state or local legislation which prevents individuals, corporations or governmental units from pumping when and where they choose. This decentralization leads to inter-governmental conflict, the unequal funding of research and development of future water sources, and, frequently to a lack of organizational concern about the problem. Water managing agencies tend to be "internally oriented,tt displaying more concern for short-run economic savings than for assurance of adequate, long-term water supply for the community. Several organizations, seeking to obtain water as inexpensively as possible, pump groundwater when and where they please, with no concern as to the impact their pumping may have on the water supply. Many contribute nothing toward research and development of future water sources. Further, organizations tend to blame one another for the water problem. Arizona water law and a lack of water management direction at the state level also frustrate planning for assurance of a long-term water supply for the area. The study suggests that, at both the state and local levels, water management be centralized under the direction of the City of Tucson, Pima County, through creation of a water district, or through institutionalization of inter-governmental cooperation. Changes in. the Arizona water code are urged as is early development of new water sources. A critical examination of the merits of the proposed Central Arizona Project is suggested. It is concluded that the suggestions made in the study are not immediately politically feasible, but that they will be both politically feasible and necessary within a decade or two.

Water resource development in the American West is partially dependent upon a political process of decision-making. Within Weststate, U.S.A., this political process is viewed as a system composed of various social units and it is examined through the activities of one type of social unit--the formal voluntary association. Eight associations were studied over a period of eighteen months. Each of the associations was examined with regard to its activities in seven issues of water resource development, the internal organization of the association, the relationship of the association with the water-oriented power structure of the state, the interrelationships with the other social units of the system, the problems of associational success and failure, and function of the association in the internal maintenance of the system and its output. It was found that the associations were not totally independent of one another nor of the other social units in the system. Rather, they were observed to be connected in varying degrees of elasticity through the sharing of personnel, interlocking directorates, the role-positions of expert and observer, and indirect ties via intermediary social units. Within the system one of the basic functions of the associations was conflict reduction. Associations were found to decrease the potential for cooperation. The associations also served as conflict creators by acting as autonomous bases of countervailance. The distribution of power throughout the system, and particularly between the "public" and "private" sectors, was another function of the association. This was usually done in three ways: (1) coordinate, usually related to a task-specific division of power, (2) subordinate, usually tied to the need for grassroots support for agency programs, and (3) superordinate, which usually involved a clientele's control of a service agency. Another power distributing function of the associations was to act as a "drain" to draw power away from the system by arousing the masses and having them rescind the proxies of power which they had given de facto to the System. The association also functioned as change inducers by providing an informal and nonpublic setting for compromise and decision-making, by reducing conflict, and by distributing power. Conversely, the associations also functioned to prevent changes by acting as independent bases of countervailance and by draining power from the system.

Water in the Tucson region is a limited resource. Ground water has been developed in the past as a primary source of water to supply all uses, and the present possibility emerges that the output products of this system of uses can be salvaged and combined with the primary source for further use. A water-salvage industry is conceived in which the outputs of water uses, augmented by storm runoff, become the inputs to the industry; water treatment is the main activity of the industry; and water of improved levels of quality is its principal output. The regional sources of salvageable water are defined as 1) domestic-industrial effluents from the metropolitan sewage collection and disposal system, 2) domestic and industrial effluents from isolated locations, called discrete sources, and 3) storm runoff from both urban and non-urban watersheds. At the 1970 level the available quantity of such waters is estimated to be in excess of 35,000 acre-feet per year and increasing. Historically, only the first of these classes of water has been salvaged and reused in the Tucson region, and then only for irrigation of fiber, field, and forage crops. The current level of treatment technology is adequate to upgrade the quality of any or all of these salvageable waters to the requirements of additional agricultural as well as recreational and industrial uses. What needs to be determined is the degree of economic feasibility of allocating the salvaged waters to these uses under the prevailing institutional constraints. The selected types of potential uses in the water reuse subsystem are industrial uses as represented by power plants and by mining and milling operations, the recreational uses of urban fishing and boating activities and park irrigation, and agricultural uses in the form of irrigation of field and forage crops, cotton, orchard, and produce. Each of the classes of use is embodied in an industry which realizes a net return to the water input. An urban recreation survey indicates, for example, that under maximum intensity of use the net returns to water for fishing and boating might be as much as $500 per acre-foot. The objective relative to all uses is to maximize aggregate net returns to water from the combined supply, and the measure of effectiveness is a net benefit function representing the difference between gross benefit and incremental cost for water in each activity. The available salvaged waters are substituted incrementally for ground water in the total regional water supply function. Calculated numerical examples of allocation of combined supplies, in a linear programming format with restraining institutional conditions, demonstrate that under optimal allocation the treated municipal-industrial effluent would be used to some extent to serve not only agricultural but recreational and industrial uses. This result is attributable in part to the condition that the metropolitan water agencies bear the obligation of primary and secondary treatment at no direct cost to the user. Under benefit maximization this effluent also could serve a significant part of the water needs of the remote mining operations; under existing institutional arrangements, however, this industry is minimizing cost by pumping from the nearest available ground-water source. Preliminary calculations indicate that structural adjustments involving construction of new facilities in the Tucson region for the utilization of salvaged waters could be economically justified, their feasibility being highly sensitive to the extent of use for urban recreational activities.

No description available.