The Central Arizona Project Brings Needed Water To Phoenix

The Central Arizona Project (CAP) is a 336 mile diversion canal in Arizona in the United States. The aqueduct diverts water from the Colorado River from Lake Havasu near Parker into central and southern Arizona. The CAP is the largest and most expensive aqueduct system ever constructed in the United States. CAP is managed and operated by the Central Arizona Water Conservation District (CAWCD). It was shepherded through Congress by Carl Hayden.

The CAP delivers Colorado River water, either directly or by exchange, into central and Southern Arizona. The project was envisioned to provide water to nearly one million acres of irrigated agricultural land areas in Maricopa, Pinal, and Pima counties, as well as municipal water for several Arizona communities, including the metropolitan areas of Phoenix and Tucson. Authorization also was included for development of facilities to deliver water to Catron, Hidalgo, and Grant counties in New Mexico, but these facilities have not been constructed because of cost considerations, a lack of demand for the water, lack of repayment capability by the users, and environmental constraints. In addition to its water supply benefits, the project also provides substantial benefits from flood control, outdoor recreation, fish and wildlife conservation, and sediment control. The project was subdivided, for administration and construction purposes, into the Granite Reef, Orme, Salt-Gila, Gila River, Tucson, Indian Distribution, and Colorado River divisions. During project construction, the Orme Division was re-formulated and renamed the Regulatory Storage Division. Upon completion, the Granite Reef Division was renamed the Hayden-Rhodes Aqueduct, and the Salt-Gila Division was renamed the Fannin-McFarland Aqueduct.

The CAP was created by the Colorado River Basin Project Act of 1968, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 30, 1968. Senator Ernest McFarland, along with Senator Carl T. Hayden, lobbied for the Central Arizona Project (CAP) aimed at providing Arizona's share of the Colorado River to the state. McFarland's efforts failed while he was a senator; however, they laid a critical foundation for the eventual passage of the CAP in the late 1960s.

Construction of the project began in 1973 with the award of a contract for the Havasu Intake Channel Dike and excavation for the Havasu Pumping Plant (now Mark Wilmer Pumping Plant) on the shores of Lake Havasu. Construction of the other project features, such as the New Waddell Dam, followed. The backbone aqueduct system, which runs about 336 miles from Lake Havasu to a terminus 14 miles southwest of Tucson, was declared substantially complete in 1993. The new and modified dams constructed as part of the project were declared substantially complete in 1994. All of the non-Native American agricultural water distribution systems were completed in the late 1980s, as were most of the municipal water delivery systems. Several Native American distribution systems remain to be built; it is estimated that full development of these systems could require another 10 to 20 years.

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