Queen Creek takes first step in buying $240M in Harquahala water rights

The town of Queen Creek has made an “unconventional” move to lock down the price of water it wants to purchase from Harquahala Valley.

The Queen Creek Town Council voted Sept. 17 to approve a purchase agreement for up to 1.2 million acre-feet of stored water, or almost 39 billion gallons, during the next 110 years in increments of 12,000-acre feet per year.

The agreement was part of the council’s consent agenda in which all items are decided through one motion and vote. The vote was 4-0. Council Members Dawn Oliphant and Travis Padilla were absent from the meeting and Mayor Julia Wheatley is on leave until late fall.

By approving the agreement, the town locked in a price of $20,000 per acre-foot if it purchases access to the entire 1.2 million acre-feet of water by Feb. 15, 2026 — a one-time cost of $240 million.

If the town cannot purchase the entire amount by the February deadline, the cost of the remaining balance will increase to $22,500 acre feet after June 30, 2026, a 12.5% increase that will raise the one-time cost to $270 million.

Council’s approval of the agreement does not bind the town to purchase the water. That will be decided in November when town staff will propose a funding mechanism for the purchase, likely in the form of a bond issuance such as the one used to pay for the creation of Frontier Family Park and the Recreation & Aquatic Center.

“We didn’t want to miss an opportunity to lock in that price. We are still evaluating all of the impacts and so and even after November, we have the opportunity to say ‘no’ up until that Feb. 15 date,” said Queen Creek’s Water Resource Director Paul Gardner. “This is a little unconventional. Usually, we have these answers before we go to a council meeting because we’ve done our due diligence before council’s asked to make a decision. So, it was strictly just to lock in that price.”

If the town does not finalize the purchase the entire 1.2 million acre-feet by August, “we go to what I would call the back of the line. And there’s no price. The price isn’t fixed, nor is the volume. The volume could or could not be available,” Gardner added.

Purchasing Harquahala Valley water is an important part of the town’s overall goal to become a designated water provider, eliminating its dependence on the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District, or CAGRD.

“We believe this will get us to about 70% of the water supply that we need for buildout and will allow us to become designated. And then when the Bartlett Dam project comes online, that will get us 100% to the finish line of being 100% off of groundwater,” Gardner said.

Earlier this year, the town closed on the purchase of 500,000 acre-feet, or 5,000 acre-feet over 110 years, of Harquahala water for $40 million. In 2023, the town began receiving 2,033 acre-feet of Colorado River water per year in perpetuity from Cibola, Arizona. The town made a one-time payment of $24 million for the water rights.

“The replenishment district has been very good to us, but they do a one-size-fits-all and it covers the entire Valley. Our issues that we have with them sometimes is they could store water over on the west side of town that’s supposed to be replenished in Queen Creek. We feel if you pump water in Queen Creek, it should be replenished in Queen Creek,” Gardner said.

By eliminating dependence on CAGRD, Queen Creek residents would see that fee disappear from their property tax bills but it likely would be replaced by an increase in town water rates.

“The money they were paying on one hand through the property tax would be flipped over to the utility bill,” Gardner said. “The idea would be that there would be either a cost-savings or equal. That’s what we’re trying to do the due diligence on right now.”

Queen Creek recently raised water utility rates by 15% to offset the infrastructure costs of providing water to the rapidly growing town.

Gardner said the goal is to start the application to become a designated water provider in January 2026 and receive the official designation by January 2027.

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