Apache Junction Water District emergency interconnect agreement sought by Arizona Water Co.

By Richard Dyer
Mail | X: @RHDyer

Arizona Water Co. has asked for an intergovernmental agreement to allow the Apache Junction Water District to deliver up to 2 million gallons of potable water a day in case of an emergency.

It is to pay $500 a month to have a meter at an interconnect site it can use for water when the need arises, Apache Junction Water District Director Mike Loggins said at the district board’s Dec. 16 meeting.

“We’ve had an emergency interconnect agreement with them in the past. We haven’t utilized it since we installed our plant in 2012-13. There were issues in the early 2000s. We had interconnect with them and received water from them. Mesa treated our (Central Arizona Project) water, we ran it through their system and delivered it to us. We shut that off — we haven’t had that in use,” he said.

“In turn now they have reached out to us where they’ve had some wells go down and needed some redundant supplies or emergency services,” Loggins said.

The agreement is to state the water district can only deliver water if it has excess supply, he said.

“If we need it for emergency purposes, we can deny them those resources at that point in time. We want to take care of our customers first,” Loggins told the Apache Junction Water District board, comprised of Apache Junction City Council members.

The three-year agreement signed Nov. 20, 2025, is to automatically renew for two additional one-year periods unless a written notice of termination is received.

Arizona Water Co. is responsible for notifying the water district authorized representative of an AWC emergency and provide at least one business day notification of its need to take water from the point of delivery, it states.

The contract price for water taken at the delivery point is a monthly base service charge of $500 and a water consumption rate of $2,500 per million gallons of water taken at the point of delivery, it states.

“AJWD agrees to make water available to AWC during an AWC emergency at the delivery point in amounts not to exceed 2 million gallons per day or 6 acre-feet per day, but no more than 372 acre-feet in a year. AJWD shall not be obligated to make available more than 372 acre-feet of water in a year,” the agreement states. “AWC shall install a metering device approved by AJWD that meets American Water Works Association standards at the AWC point of delivery. The metering device shall be owned, operated and maintained by AJWD, and AJWD shall calibrate the device annually and provide AWC the opportunity to witness the calibration.”

Water district

The Apache Junction water district supplies well water (groundwater) pumped from the Eastern Salt River Sub-Basin Aquifer, which flows southwesterly under Apache Junction and its surrounding areas. The groundwater is treated for arsenic removal where necessary, disinfected with chlorine, pumped into storage tanks and blended with Colorado River (surface) water.

The surface water is transported through the Central Arizona Project canal system and filtered and purified at the Superstition Area Water Plant before being introduced into the distribution system.

The water district can also receive treated CAP water from the city of Mesa through an interconnect for a backup supply of water, if needed.

Richard H. Dyer can be reached at rdyer@iniusa.org, or on X @rhdyer. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines, https://www.yourvalley.net/civility-checklist/.

Richard Dyer
Managing Editor | East Valley

rdyer@iniusa.org

Meet Richard
Richard Dyer has worked at Independent Newsmedia Inc. USA since 1987, starting his career in Apache Junction as a copy editor and being promoted over the years to work as the editor of the Mesa Independent, news services editor for the East Valley office in Apache Junction, managing editor for the East Valley office, news services editor for the East Valley office and eventually also for the newspapers at INI’s then-Chandler office, managing editor again and as a news editor covering Apache Junction/Gold Canyon and Queen Creek. He helped start the Florence Independent while the news editor covering Apache Junction and Mesa news. In January 2023, he became associate managing editor for the East Valley newspapers and in August 2023 became managing editor for the East Valley newspapers of Chandler/Tempe, Gilbert, Queen Creek, Florence, Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon, while also reporting on Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon.  

Community: Since 2009, he has worked as a volunteer to design The Blue Guitar Magazine, Blue Guitar Jr. magazine and Unstrung magazine, which are projects of The Arizona Consortium for the Arts; and since 2014, has been overseeing the art submissions. 

Education: University of Arizona with a master of arts in journalism and a bachelor of science in agricultural communication. Also continuing education at Mesa Community College in welding in a metal art sculpture class.

Random fact: Saw his first tornado on May 31, 2010, which was classified as an EF-2, as part of a stormchasing tour group.

Hobbies: He is an artist of welded-steel sculptures, selling his artwork at juried and non-juried art shows.