The Arizona Water Banking Authority was created in 1996 to store the unused portion of Arizona’s annual allocation of the Colorado River. By storing this unused water the AWBA secures a dependable water supply necessary to ensure the state’s long-term prosperity. The plan is intended to govern the operations of the AWBA over the course of the entire calendar year.

The Arizona Water Banking Authority was created in 1996 to store the unused portion of Arizona’s annual allocation of Colorado River water. Until the AWBA was created, Arizona had not fully utilized its 2.8 million acre-foot allocation of Colorado River water and the state’s leaders recognized that leaving a portion of Arizona’s allocation in the river was a lost opportunity. The AWBA was created to provide assurances that water users within the state had secure, long-term water supplies.

The primary purpose of the Inventory is to identify storage capacity available to the Arizona Water Banking Authority to meet its water storage goals. Inclusion of a facility in the Inventory does not equate to a commitment by the AWBA to utilize any specific facility in the future. The AWBA will continue to determine annually which facilities will be used through the development of the Annual Plan of Operation. Conversely, not including a facility in the Inventory does not preclude the AWBA from utilizing that facility in a future Annual Plan. It does, however, preclude the facility from being utilized for interstate water storage, until such time as it is included in an updated Inventory.

Water banking is one of Arizona's most important water management strategies, and its success depends on effective planning. This joint plan helps advance the objective, articulated in the intergovernmental agreement among CAP, ADWR and AWBA, to develop a coordinated and cooperative planning process that includes distribution and recovery of water stored by the AWBA.

The purpose of the Inventory is to determine whether storage facilities exist in this state to meet the water storage needs of the authority for the following ten years. The Authority approved the initial Inventory in 1997. Because additional storage facilities are continually being constructed, the Authority updates the Inventory at least once every five years. The Authority has been annually updating all new facilities that could be utilized by the Authority in its Annual Report. It is important to note that the primary purpose of the Inventory is to identify the capacity that is available for potential storage by the Authority to meet its objectives. The inclusion of a facility in the Inventory does not equate to a commitment by the Authority that the facility will be utilized for water banking purposes in the future. The Authority will continue to determine annually which facilities will be used through the development of an Annual Plan of Operation. Conversely, a facility that is not included in the Inventory may be utilized in a future Annual Plan of Operation.

Though the Great Recession may be officially over, all is not well in Arizona. Three years after the collapse of a massive real estate “bubble,” the deepest economic downturn in memory exposed and exacerbated one of the nation’s most profound state fiscal crises, with disturbing implications for Arizona citizens and the state’s long-term economic health.

This brief takes a careful look at the Grand Canyon State’s fiscal situation, examining both Arizona’s serious cyclical budget shortfall—the one resulting from a temporary collapse of revenue due to the recession—as well as the chronic, longer-term, and massive structural imbalances that have developed largely due to policy choices made in better times. This primer employs a unique methodology to estimate the size of the state’s structural deficit and then explores the mix of forces, including the large permanent tax reductions, that created them. It also highlights some of the dramatic impacts these fiscal challenges are having on service-delivery as well as on local governments. The brief suggests some of the steps state policymakers must take to close their budget gaps over the short and longer term. First, it urges better policymaking, and prods leaders to broaden, balance, and diversify the state’s revenue base while looking to assure a long-haul balance of taxing and spending. And second, it recommends that Arizona improve the information-sharing and budgeting processes through which fiscal problems are understood—so they may ultimately be averted.

This report follows The Coming of Age report produced in 2002 by some of the principals involved in this project, and published by St. Luke’s Health Initiatives. That research showed that Arizona had much to do to get ready for the baby boomer age wave. The results of Unlocking Resilience from new survey data, interviews, and secondary research indicates Arizona still has much to do to prepare for aging and must make concrete policy decisions about aging.