At 50, OV is utilizing H20 beyond what’s below
By Dave Perry
For the Town of Oro Valley
Oro Valley’s water supply “is second to none in Arizona,” Councilmember Steve Solomon said at a June town council meeting.
It’d be hard to argue otherwise.
For decades, Oro Valley decision makers and elected leaders have invested millions of dollars, while meandering a strategic course, to create a diverse, sustainable supply of water in the Desert Southwest.
At age 50, the Town of Oro Valley is watering golf courses and several public turf spaces with treated effluent, deploying a share of its water from the Colorado River ... and cutting its groundwater consumption in half, even while its population has more than doubled since the late 1990s.
Numbers speak to the story.
In calendar year 2023, the Oro Valley Water Utility served more than 40,000 residents by pumping 4,925 acre feet of groundwater, delivering 2,573 acre feet of Central Arizona Project water “wheeled” through the Tucson Water system, and returning 1,880 acre feet of reclaimed water to turf areas. That totals 9,378 acre feet of delivered water.
By contrast, in 2004, Oro Valley – with fewer people -- used more than 10,000 acre feet of water ... all of it groundwater.
Oro Valley has tapped sources beyond groundwater through vision, perseverance, negotiation, collaboration, sound financial management, commitment from elected officials, and hard work by so many people over decades. “Without the people, none of those things happens,” Water Utility Director Peter Abraham said.
“Diversification of the portfolio is most important,” said Philip Saletta, who preceded Abraham as utility director for 12 years beginning in 2005. By doing so, “you’re able to make choices about how you can manage your water supply to meet the demand. ... As a resident, I’m very confident in the water supply we have.”
It all leaves Oro Valley in a position “envied by other towns and cities,” Abraham said, “because we’re so well-positioned from a water resource perspective.”
A long journey
Oro Valley, incorporated in 1974, didn’t operate a water utility until the mid-1990s. Historian Jim Williams, author of the book “Oro Valley, The First 50 Years,” writes that seven private water companies served early Oro Valley. All relied exclusively on groundwater. The town controlled none of them.
Citizens believed Tucson Water would buy up local water companies. Community leaders such as Councilmember Lee Elliott feared rate increases without local input. Oro Valley decided to take control. But, first, and always in Oro Valley, the public weighed in.
In 1993, Williams writes, 200 Rancho Vistoso residents came to a town council meeting to protest Oro Valley’s plans to acquire the Rancho Vistoso Water Company. They feared higher rates and taxes.
Paul Loomis, who served as mayor of Oro Valley from 1998 to 2010, gave credit to a predecessor, Mayor Cheryl Skalsky, who led the community from 1995 into 1997.
“I don’t believe I’m saying this,” Loomis told the Oro Valley Historical Society at a 50th anniversary panel in March 2024, “but she pushed the town and the public into acquiring the water companies” and thus allowed Oro Valley to grow. “It was definitely a very controversial activity, but she was able to push it through.”
With the utility in place, Oro Valley reached an agreement with Tucson Water to return reclaimed water to turf areas. The reclaimed system became fully functional in 2008. In 2023, reclaimed water fulfilled 20% of the utility’s total need.
Between 1996 and 2007, Oro Valley negotiated for and purchased its ultimate, annual allocation of 10,305 acre feet of CAP water. It was what Saletta describes as “paper” water; none of it was available for consumption.
In 2012, while the town grew and the aquifer declined, Oro Valley physically linked its water system to a point on the City of Tucson water system where it could “wheel” CAP water to your tap. Oro Valley has since expanded its wheeling capacity. In 2023, wheeled CAP water comprised 27 % of the utility’s total delivered production.
The rest of Oro Valley’s water comes from the aquifer below. In 2023, groundwater provided 53% of the utility’s total need. That year, Oro Valley pumped its third-lowest annual volume of groundwater since the utility was created in 1996.
That’s not good enough for Abraham, who said the water utility is “looking forward to still continuing our main mission of decreasing groundwater pumping” from its 18 production wells. Fifteen years ago, the town’s groundwater wells were declining “10, 11, 12 feet a year,” Abraham said. Now, Oro Valley is seeing “recovery” in eight of them. He wants more.
Oro Valley Mayor Joe Winfield is proud of Oro Valley’s water accomplishments. In his 2023 State of the Town Address, Winfield credited “our community’s strong conservation ethic, and an efficient water system” for its success. Winfield and his wife Mariann embrace that conservation ethic, saving gray water and what falls from the sky to curb their monthly consumption from the utility.
“I show conservation as a source of supply,” Abraham said. “Water saved is water produced.”
Next up .... NWRRDS
Oro Valley expects to further utilize its CAP allocation by spending an estimated $50 million as its share of the Northwest Recharge and Recovery Delivery System.
When the project, in partnership with the Town of Marana and Metro Water, begins delivering water sometime in 2026, Oro Valley plans to “physically recover up to 4,000 acre-feet of renewable Central Arizona Project water that Oro Valley has already stored, and will continue to store,” in groundwater recharge facilities in Avra Valley west of Tucson, Abraham said in a successful grant application for state funds.
“NWRRDS is huge, not just for Oro Valley, but the whole Northwest part of Tucson,” said Alan Forrest, who served as water utility director from 1999 into 2005. “We’re in a really good position, both in terms of meeting the (state’s) assured water supply” requirement, “but also in terms in taking care of what we have, and doing it right. ... It’s not easy, it’s not cheap, but it’s the right thing to do. We’re on that path we started 20, 30 years ago.”
The Oro Valley Water Utility at a glance
How Oro Valley acquired its 10,305 acre feet allocation of Central Arizona Project water
1996: 1,652 acre feet received with Oro Valley’s $13 million acquisition of Cañada Hills Water Co. The town also paid $10.5 million for the Rancho Vistoso Water Company. Oro Valley formed its water utility.
1999: 642 acre feet received upon assuming management of the Oro Valley Water Improvement District #1.
2002: 4,454 acre feet received as a result of a settlement with the City of Tucson regarding Northwest Area Agreements with 3 private water companies (Cañada Hills, Metro Water, Rancho Vistoso). Oro Valley paid Tucson $5.995 million for the allocation.
2007: 3,557 acre feet received as a result of a reallocation of CAP water through an agreement with the Central Arizona Water Conservation District and the federal Department of Interior. Oro Valley paid CAWCD $2.6 million for the allocation.
How Oro Valley acquired reclaimed water
In 2000, the town began negotiating with the City of Tucson to acquire rights to wastewater effluent, and to treat and deliver reclaimed water. A cooperative agreement was entered in 2002.
In a $21.8 million, 2-phase investment spanning 2003 through 2008, Oro Valley built the reclaimed water infrastructure, identifiable by the pink pipe, that today irrigates the 18-hole golf courses at Stone Canyon and Sun City Oro Valley, the 36 holes of golf at the now-municipal Cañada and El Conquistador courses, and to water fields at Painted Sky Elementary School and Naranja Park.
“Wheeling” of CAP water into Oro Valley
In 2012, Oro Valley began “wheeling” up to 2,600 acre feet of “wet” CAP water each year through the Tucson Water system, reducing the town’s groundwater pumping.
Oro Valley’s 2023 water deliveries, by source
- 4,925 acre-feet of pumped groundwater (53% of total use);
- 2,573 acre-feet of “wheeled” Central Arizona Project water (27%);
- 1,880 acre-feet of reclaimed water, for irrigation and other non-potable uses (20%).
- 9,378 acre-feet of water delivered in total.
- Total consumption in 2004 – more than 10,000 acre feet, all of it groundwater.
Oro Valley population growth, approximations
1974, at incorporation: 1,200 residents; 1980: 2,500; 1990: 6,670; 2000: 29,700; 2010: 41,000; 2020: 47,070. Total customers – 21,300 connections at the end of 2023.