• Arizona’s Non‑Indian Agricultural (NIA) water—360,000 acre‑feet from the Colorado River—will be gone by 2026, with 46,629 acre‑feet already reassigned to cities and industries.
• The groundwater district must use one‑time underground water credits instead of NIA supplies, raising future costs.
• CAP’s new rate plan stops counting NIA water and leans on revenue fees, showing even mid‑level water shares can’t be trusted.

May 8, 2025 — According to Joanna Allhands of the Arizona Republic, Arizona’s smallest share of Colorado River water, known as the Non‑Indian Agricultural pool, will disappear entirely in 2026 because of ongoing drought cuts . Central Arizona Project (CAP) board papers confirm her warning, reaveling that about 46,600 acre‑feet of that water have already been reassigned to growing cities and businesses starting in 2022.

Without NIA water, the Central Arizona Groundwater Conservation District must tap stored underground credits, leftover water saved years ago, to meet its needs. Those credits are a one‑time fix and will cost more as they run out. CAP’s 2022–2026 rate schedule drops NIA volumes from its calculations and boosts fee‑based revenue instead, signaling that even water once seen as a backup is no longer reliable.

If mid‑priority water can vanish, higher‑priority city and tribal supplies may face cuts next, threatening assured water designations and future growth in metro Phoenix.  Read more at the Arizona Republic.

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