The Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy has been awarded a grant by the Richard H. Whitney Fund for the Common Good, a component fund of the Arizona Community Foundation, for the Growing Water Smart (GWS) program. 

The inaugural Growing Water Smart training reached leaders from Surprise and six other communities serving more than 700,000 Arizona residents, helping them craft action plans to integrate water and land use planning in their communities.

Thanks to partial funding provided by the Arizona Community Foundation, the Babbitt Center and its partner, the Sonoran Institute, are able to offer direct technical assistance to these communities to implement plans formulated during the Growing Water Smart program.

The impacts of a hotter and drier climate in the Western U.S. have created significant uncertainty about water availability in the coming decades. Falling water levels in reservoirs and groundwater aquifers present challenges to balancing water needs with supplies.

Now, local jurisdictions must reevaluate their water budgets and assume new leadership roles in their communities, regions, and states. Growing Water Smart addresses a critical need by training and assisting communities to integrate land and water planning so people, nature, and the economy can thrive.

In addition to Surprise, the participating Arizona communities in the inaugural training program included Apache Junction, Avondale, Buckeye, Casa Grande, Florence and Gilbert.

“It was a fantastic experience, in the nick of time for our planning processes,” said Lacey James, Water Resource and Regulatory Manager for the city of Avondale. “It was excellent to have all the staff and elected officials sharing information. Hearing from other cities reinforced the need for action.”

“Our expectations going in were that we would come out of this event with a plan that we can incorporate into our General Plan Update,” said Craig McFarland, mayor of Casa Grande. “I believe we have done that.”

The Babbitt Center and Sonoran Institute are seeking funding to deliver Growing Water Smart throughout the Colorado River Basin, which includes Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming, and two states in Mexico.

Growing Water Smart is an innovative, interactive workshop that introduces communities to the full range of collaboration, communication, public engagement, planning, and policy implementation tools to realize their resiliency goals.

The program is offered at no cost for community teams selected through a competitive biannual application process and teams can apply for technical assistance to implement the action plan they create. It includes a comprehensive virtual platform to provide all Colorado River Basin communities an opportunity to grow water smart.

For information about upcoming workshops and the application process contact Faith Sternlieb at fsternlieb@lincolninst.edu or 602-393-4310 or visit growingwatersmart.org.