They’ve given flow to OV Water Utility
By Dave Perry
For the Town of Oro Valley
Since 1999, the Oro Valley Water Utility has had three directors -- Alan Forrest, Philip Saletta, and Peter Abraham.
Their different but connected experiences form a sequential line – a pipeline, if you will – flowing into what is today a $110 million and growing utility delivering ample, high-quality water from three sources to businesses, institutions, parks, golf courses, school grounds, and nearly 50,000 residents.
That pipeline’s not finished. But its path represents decades of vision, toil, investment, and delivery.
Into the heat of it, Day 1
Alan Forrest became Oro Valley’s Water Utility director in 1999. His first week on the job, one of the two wells in the Countryside service area failed.
In July.
“We lost the pump in the bottom of the hole, a major failure,” Forrest remembered. “It was as hot as you can get, with demands as high as you can get. We had trouble keeping up to provide basic domestic demand, much less fire flow.”
Forrest “scrambled to get a temporary connection with Tucson Water so we could ... keep the tanks from going dry,” he recalled. The crisis – and, crucially, its resolution – typified Forrest’s whirlwind at the helm of Oro Valley’s Water Utility.
Forrest, who succeeded Town Engineer / Water Utility Director David Hook, had plenty to do within a nascent water utility. Oro Valley formed its utility in 1996, when it acquired the large, private Cañada Hills and Rancho Vistoso water companies, and committed to serve users in Countryside and elsewhere.
“They were three distinct, separate utilities for all intents and purposes,” Forrest said. “We had to integrate them, not only physically, we also had to integrate the business side. They all had different rates and charges.”
It “took a while” for Oro Valley to clean that up. Meanwhile, “we were trying to keep wells operating, and some of them were old wells that maybe hadn’t been maintained as well as they should have been.”
Growing Oro Valley demanded evermore water. “Everything was groundwater at the time,” Forrest said. “We were dropping in all our wells on average six feet per year. We knew we had to do something.”
The most immediate “something” became an agreement with Tucson Water to bring treated effluent to Oro Valley golf courses and green spaces. A multi-year, $21.8 million, two-phased project – funded by what was then Oro Valley’s largest bond issue – eased pressure on the aquifer.
Oro Valley also negotiated with Tucson Water to acquire an allocation of Central Arizona Project water that came with the transfer of Northwest-side private companies to Oro Valley.
“It was the only way we were going to be able to meet the state’s assured water supply designation,” Forrest said. “We got it done.” Town Manager Chuck Sweet was “really instrumental.” And “we never would have gotten anywhere” without the support of Mayor Paul Loomis and the Town Council.
“Everybody saw where we needed to get,” Forrest said. “We didn’t do this in a vacuum. We laid out what we had to do. I look back on it, I knew it was a lot of work. I think about what we were able to accomplish in those negotiations with Tucson Water, getting the rights to those resources, then getting the money to design and do the construction. In that five years of time, that was a whole lot.”
Forrest, now a self-employed water consultant, is an Oro Valley resident and a member of the town’s Water Utility Commission.
“When people ask me about some of my most memorable accomplishments ... I turn to my time in Oro Valley,” Forrest said. Over those few years, the work of many people “has carried through. It set the town up so they could grow, so they could continue to prosper.”
Over lunch one day ...
Years ago, Oro Valley Town Manager David Andrews and Water Utility Director Philip Saletta talked town business over a meal.
“David point blank looked at me, and said ‘Philip, I want you to get Central Arizona Project water to Oro Valley,” Saletta recalled.
Saletta “knew right then and there” he had the full support from town management “to do what needed to be done.” Council was ready to put up the money, “and staff wanted to do this. They knew the importance of it. It was a major team effort to get that accomplished.”
Saletta, who had succeeded Forrest as Water Utility director in June 2005, was guiding the second phase of Oro Valley’s reclaimed water project. While water delivered through the signature pink pipes took some pressure off precious groundwater, “water levels were dropping significantly from the wells,” he said.
The town had an allocation of 10,305 acre feet of CAP water, but none of it reached Oro Valley taps. It was what Saletta refers to as “paper water.”
Oro Valley’s “very good history” with Tucson Water was “the best way” to access CAP water, he said. Oro Valley “started talking to Tucson Water” about building an inter-system connection and “wheeling” CAP water through Tucson Water pipelines and into Oro Valley.
The first connection was completed in 2012.
“We had a big celebration,” Saletta remembered. Oro Valley Mayor Satish Hiremath and Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, who grew up in Northwest Tucson, “turned on the switch together.”
Addition of reclaimed and CAP water, along with the community’s strong conservation ethic, “really helped to keep those wells stabilized,” Saletta said. With an eye toward a further expanded portfolio, Oro Valley figured out a cost-effective way to recharge its unused CAP allocation underground, making it available in years to come.
“We started building up our own underground water storage accounts,” Saletta said. “We bought credits, buying all our CAP water, our full allocation, and (began) storing that in our name.
“It’s just like a bank account,” he said. “You’re saving for that non-rainy day.”
The power of a fortune cookie
In 2015, Peter Abraham left Tucson Water to become Oro Valley’s water resource and planning manager. Some months later, director Saletta announced his plan to retire. People nudged Abraham to seek the position.
“No, no, no,” he told them. “I’m an engineer, a behind-the-scenes guy.”
A paper fortune from a crumbled cookie at Panda Express finally inspired Abraham to apply.
“Now is the time to set your sights high and go for it,” the fortune read.
“Fine!” he exclaimed. “I’ll go for it!”
When Abraham assumed the position, legacy utility employees – people who “really built the organization to be what it is today” – were ready to retire. He spent considerable time putting “the right people in the right places doing the right things,” assembling an experienced senior management team in David Allred, Mary Rallis, and Lee Jacobs.
“Building a strong management team was very necessary,” Abraham said. “I don’t micromanage. I share a strategic vision, and then I enable, and give them the tools to be successful.”
On the resource side, Abraham knew where Oro Valley could further connect with Tucson Water and get more wheeled CAP water. “Wheeling is the least expensive way of getting CAP water into our service area, by far,” he said. In 2023, Oro Valley wheeled 27 percent of its total consumption through those connections.
Today, “we’re their single-largest customer,” Abraham said of Tucson Water. “We got a lot of CAP water for very little investment. That’s the smartest thing we ever did. That’s maintaining good relationships with our partners.”
And now, NWRRDS.
The Northwest Recharge and Recovery Delivery System was Saletta’s “strategic vision,” Abraham said. Saletta “handed the ball to me and retired. He said ‘You have an intergovernmental agreement. Make it happen.’ My job is bringing that program to fruition.”
For Oro Valley alone, NWRRDS is a $50 million project. When the NWRRDS tap turns on, as soon as early 2026, Oro Valley can receive an additional 4,000 acre feet of “wet” CAP water.
“From a resource perspective, it’s – wow,” Abraham said. “I don’t think we’ll ever have to do a project that big again for 20 years.” Combined with wheeled water, NWRRDS will give Oro Valley physical access to almost 70 percent of its CAP allocation.
“Wow,” Abraham repeated. “Every acre foot of CAP water is just that much less groundwater we’re using.”
Abraham wants to see rising water levels rise in every Oro Valley groundwater well. In 2023, those levels rose in eight of the utility’s 18 wells.
While some of those wells are located where equilibrium may be elusive, “in Peter Abraham’s water utility made in heaven, yes,” all wells can rise, he said. “I aim high. Maybe I’m overoptimistic at a fault, but I’m going to make the universe tell me ‘no.’”
The Panda Express fortune remains on his desk. “I should have it laminated,” Abraham said.