Queen Creek continues working toward water independence

Queen Creek may have made the final payment on more than 1 million acre-feet of Harquahala Valley basin water in July, but the work to get that water to the town is far from over.

At a planning meeting on Aug. 10, the Queen Creek Town Council received an update on the next steps in building the infrastructure to transport the Harquahala water and the quest to become a designated water provider.

“The Harquahala Valley was a farming/irrigation system and our initial work is specifically on rehabilitating the wells and doing a lot of water quality testing to make sure that the project that we’re coming forward to deliver is meeting all the standards that we need to meet,” said Marc Skocypec, the town’s utilities director, in an interview after the meeting. “That work started about six or eight months ago. It will continue for the course of this year.”

Last fall, the town agreed to purchase 1.2 million acre-feet of Harquahala basin water for $244.4 million. An acre-foot is enough water to cover 1 acre in 1 foot of water, or about 326,000 gallons. The first payment of $140 million was made in February, with the final $104.4 million paid on July 15.

Earlier in 2025, the town closed on the purchase of 500,000 acre-feet of Harquahala water for $40 million. In total, the town is paying about $285 million for basin water.

The Harquahala water infrastructure plan is three pronged. First, the town has 21 wells assigned for transportation use on the north side of the Harquahala Valley.

“These wells will be improved, and pipelines will be installed to move the groundwater that is pumped to a central location,” according to a staff report.

The second prong is making sure Central Arizona Project water quality standards are met, as well as constructing any treatment infrastructure needed at a central location.

Finally, a pipeline will be constructed under the I-10 and across Bureau of Land Management land to move the water to the CAP canal. There, an inlet structure will be built, the report continued.

“One of the efficiencies we’re looking at with Harquahala is being able to reverse engineer some of that infrastructure that’s out there to actually pull water out of that groundwater basin and put it into the CAP for ultimate delivery and use in Queen Creek,” Skocypec said.

The town will also be undergoing an extensive National Environmental Protection Act review as it deals with federal infrastructure and land as part of transporting the water.

Under the act, federal agencies and state and local agencies evaluate the environmental, social and economic effects of proposed projects.

“There’s a whole process we will have to go through, a public process, and basically this year will be spent gearing up for that and submitting an application to the federal government to get that going,” Skocypec said.

The anticipated total budget for the infrastructure plan, plus the National Environmental Protection Act review, is set at $69.2 million, according to the staff report.

This fiscal year the town budgeted $177.5 million for water resources and infrastructure. That covered the final payment for the Harquahala water.

While working on setting up the infrastructure necessary to transport the water to Queen Creek, staff is also working on the town’s ultimate goal of becoming a designated water provider, eliminating its dependence on the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District, or CAGRD.

The designation is granted by the Arizona Department of Water Resources. The certification ensures a 100-year assured water supply for the community.

“We made application to the Department of Water Resources for an alternative designation … in April of this year. There is a due diligence back-and-forth review between the town and the department of water resources,” Skocypec said. “We’re still on the front end of that.”

Skocypec said that process is still on track to be completed in 2027.

Once the town becomes a designated water provider, the CAGRD fee charged on residents’ property taxes will be eliminated. Staff is currently evaluating and developing a future water resource fee that will eventually serve as the dedicated funding source for water purchases. Residents will not begin paying that fee until the CAGRD charge is eliminated.

With so many moving parts to the project, Skocypec said it’s important to remind residents that “we have plenty of water.”

“But the day and age of cheap water is past us. Water, any water that we’re looking at, is going to be more and more expensive whether it comes from Arizona or it comes from other parts of the country and is imported into Arizona,” Skocypec said. “The water is going to be more expensive, and part of our job as a water provider and as a town is to do our best to educate our public on all of the factors that are going into water and its costs and how we’re managing it.”

Janet Perez can be reached at jperez@iniusa.org. Please send your comments about this article to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.