PHOENIX - Members of the state's Water Infrastructure Finance Authority voted last week to take the first step toward asking companies for plans to show how they could import more than 100 billion gallons of water to Arizona.

The water could supplement - and possibly replace - some of what is being used now to supply homeowners, industrial users and farmers.

What WIFA is pursuing is what remains of a $1 billion plan by former Gov. Doug Ducey to have the state desalinate water from the Sea of Cortez in Mexico.

That resulted in negotiations by the WIFA board solely with Israeli-based IDE Technologies in a bid by Ducey to have a deal inked by the time he left office in January 2023.

It all blew up when word got out and board members concluded they didn't have enough information.

Now all of that is starting over, complete with an open solicitation process - and no decisions that desalination is the answer. Ted Cooke, a WIFA board member who chairs the committee, said the panel is open to ideas ranging from bringing in surface water from other states, reclaimed water and "other.''

"So, there's an 'other' there which means anything,'' he said.

"We want to have an open mind to have innovative ideas that go beyond the obvious ones,'' Cooke said. "And even the obvious ones have lots of potential regulatory, legal, political permitting-type challenges.''

But the bottom line, he said, is making sure that any of these ideas are viable.

At the heart of the problem is a convergence of several factors.

Arizona is growing. And while some of the need for residential use can be met by retiring farmland, that isn't always an option.

Related to that is a recognition that groundwater is not an infinite resource.

Then there's the fact that the drought is putting less water in the Colorado River. And the state, which already has had its allocation reduced, is virtually certain to have to take future cuts.

Cooke said some studies have shown the total anticipated "unmet demand'' for the state could be as high as 5 million acre-feet, with an acre foot being the amount of water that could serve two or three average families a year.

And a more focused study of the areas served by the Central Arizona Project showed projections of a need of between 100,000 and 500,000 acre-feet within 10 years.

Arizona lawmakers voted in 2022 to set aside $1 billion over three years for water augmentation projects, with a mandate that at least 75% of it comes from outside the state.

However, Gov. Katie Hobbs, looking for places to cut funding, trimmed last year's allocated by half and eliminated entirely this year's $333 million payment. Chelsea McGuire, an assistant director at the agency, said that leaves the agency with about $450 million.

There's really nothing that can be built for that amount.  In fact, even the $1 billion was seen only as a form of state participation: Estimates from that now-defunct Israeli plan put the price tag in the $5.5 billion range.

So what that leaves at this point is to use WIFA's money to find someone who has technical expertise, has a viable plan - and is willing to use at least some of its own funds to build.

What's needed to make that work for any company ultimately chosen by WIFA, however, is having guaranteed long-term customers. And that turns on the billion-dollar question: How much are water users willing to pay?

The average monthly water bill for Phoenix is about $45 a month. It's pretty much the same for Tucson.

Multiply that out by 12 and you're talking $540 a year. That covers everything from producing and treating it to maintaining the system that delivers it to the door.

By contrast, estimates for desalination projects put the cost of treating and delivering an acre-foot of water at anywhere from $2,500 to $5,000 an acre-foot. Even assuming conservative use of water and that three families can be served with an acre-foot, that means adding anywhere from $830 to $1,600 extra a year to a water bill.

At the same time, there are other costly - but less expensive - alternatives being explored to increase the supply of domestic water.

One of the most talked about is "advanced water purification,'' sometimes referred to as "toilet to tap.'' In fact, the state Department of Environmental Quality has published the draft rules for taking water which just a few days earlier had been flushed down the toilet and delivering it to water faucets.

Scottsdale has a plant that is treating sewage to drinking water standards, though actually delivering it to people's homes will require a DEQ permit. And Phoenix is retrofitting one of its sewage treatment facilities to produce potable water.

Cooke noted that while the law authorizing WIFA to find water requires that 75% come from out of state, that still leaves room for it to be exploring options like this.

"Ideally, we would have some idea of what are the viable options out there for in-state augmentation so we can compare the two and make the choices before we're fully subscribed to go out and get $4,000-an-acre-foot water for the whole 500,000 acre-feet that we think that we need -- and no longer have the means or the opportunity to do something less expensive,'' he said.

There's also the belief that once the state starts getting proposals to augment the water supply from an out-of-state source, someone may come up with something different that has not been considered.

Jonathan Lines, who chairs the WIFA board, said that's exactly what the request for solicitations issued this past week deliberately does not spell out the technology to be used.

"We're not limited in scope or specifics,'' he said. "And we want to do what makes sense for Arizona long term, with no commitment today on what that path forward looks like.''

But there's another factor at work that could affect what the water will cost, whether it will be affordable - and even how many proposals the state will get: The failure of the state to live up to its commitment for $1 billion.

McGuire said the message that goes out to those who might want to get involved is that "Arizona clearly isn't serious about this.'' And that, she said, will make some of them believe it is not worth their time to submit a proposal.

The other side, McGuire explained, goes to the huge capital cost of such a project, whether desalination, a water pipeline from the Midwest or something else.

"We're going to have to play some role,'' she said, having the state invest its own cash.

Put simply, McGuire said any private developer forced to pick up all the costs would want a rate of return on that investment. And that, in turn, will drive up the costs of delivered product to the point that no one will be willing to commit to long-term purchases.

Howard Fischer is on On X, Bluesky and Threads: @azcapmedia

We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.