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Cave Creek warns of Colorado River cuts, unveils bridging plan and conservation push
Summary
Town staff told residents that a likely Central Arizona Project reduction of about 20% by 2027 would create near‑term shortages; officials outlined bridge measures (banked credits, exchanges, limited well restarts), a metering upgrade and outreach to reduce demand.
Sean Cruz Weisner, Cave Creek’s utilities director, told a packed town hall that the town expects reductions to Central Arizona Project (CAP) deliveries that could begin in 2027 and said the community must prepare through both supply actions and demand reductions.
“At the end of this year, we think we’ll have about 3,200 acre feet in the ground,” Weisner said as he described the town’s stored recharge credits and the need to secure physical access to that water. Brad Hill, a consulting hydrologist, framed the larger problem: dwindling Colorado River flows and negotiations between basin states that, in the consultants’ scenario, result in roughly 20% cuts to CAP deliveries in 2027.
Town staff laid out a three‑leg approach to bridge the shortfall. Short‑term measures include restarting some local Desert Hills wells (with caveats about declining production and water quality), tapping stored groundwater credits via exchange agreements with neighboring cities that have wells within the recharge zones, and seeking withdrawals from the Arizona Water Banking Authority where feasible. Staff emphasized that exchanges and bank withdrawals require legal agreements and infrastructure to physically recover the water.
Weisner also previewed a renewed conservation push and technology investments to reduce consumption. The town used federal grant funds to begin upgrading meters to an automatic metering infrastructure (AMI) and launched a customer portal called my360 to give residents near real‑time usage data; staff said about 60% of Cave Creek customers are currently on AMI and 294 customers had signed up for the portal.
Local officials said they prefer voluntary reductions but warned mandatory conservation measures are available in the town’s drought management code if deeper cuts are needed. The briefing emphasized outreach to high‑use accounts and commercial users as a priority.
The town said it is actively coordinating with ADWR, CAP and neighboring municipalities to negotiate exchange agreements that would convert the town’s underground ‘paper’ credits into physical deliveries. Officials said those interjurisdictional agreements, and the infrastructure to recover credits, are central to avoiding service interruptions.
The town will present these bridge actions, and the legal and financial terms needed to implement them, to the council as projects develop.
