For decades, the Town of Cave Creek operated under the quiet assumption that water would always flow.
But behind the scenes, a growing crisis has forced local leaders to reckon with harsh realities, fragile infrastructure, and a shrinking supply from the Colorado River.
Town officials trace the formal management efforts back nearly two decades.
“The town bought the water systems in 2007,” said Cave Creek Utilities Director Shawn Kreuzwiesner. “I think, from that point on, they started looking at that and how to manage the water resources at the time.”
However, as local development expanded, the urgency intensified. By 2022, the town updated its water shortage and drought management plan to prepare for upcoming reductions in supply.
The town’s water delivery system relies heavily on a long-standing contractual arrangement with the Central Arizona Project. Cave Creek holds both a Municipal and Industrial subcontract and a Non-Indian Agricultural subcontract.
Beginning in 2027, Cave Creek will no longer have access to the Non-Indian Agricultural water.
The central challenge facing Cave Creek is its heavy reliance on outside sources. Nearly 95% of the town’s water supply comes directly from the Colorado River.
When mandatory cuts to the Central Arizona Project allocation became imminent, officials braced for impact.
“We’ve been anticipating a 20% cut, balancing everything around a 20% cut,” Kreuzwiesner said. “CAP has told us for next year through their manipulation of the system they’re actually going to be able to reach that down to 14% for next year.”
Natalie Mast, water resources and planning manager with Central Arizona Project, talked about the struggles to get down to a number that was manageable for everyone who takes water from CAP.
“We were expecting about a 10% reduction to the tribal pool ... and about a 14% reduction to the M&I priority CAP water,” Mast said. “When we calculate reductions to M&I, for example, we look at it at the pool level. We get everyone’s water order in on Oct. 1, and that tells us how much total water everyone’s trying to get in that M&I pool.”
Compounding the supply issue is the vulnerability of the town’s delivery infrastructure.
Cave Creek depends on a single 12.5-mile pipeline running along Cave Creek Road with four inline booster stations to feed its treatment plant.
“Anything goes wrong with any of those components means we can’t produce water for the system,” Kreuzwiesner said. “The system has so many single points of failure. That’s critical.”
To build resiliency, the town is pursuing key interconnections, such as a major distribution link with the city of Phoenix, as well as short-term water exchange agreements with neighboring municipalities like Peoria and Surprise.
“I want to make sure everybody’s aware of it’s not adding to our water resources, but it gives us a connection to a distribution system that we currently don’t have,” Kreuzwiesner said of the Phoenix interconnect. “Once the city of Phoenix interconnect is up, that gives us another way of getting water into the system.
“It doesn’t fully replace our need for the treatment plant, but having some water come in through Phoenix, then filling their reservoir and distributing a system is huge, which I don’t have right now,” Kreuzwiesner added.
Cave Creek has also taken the step of working on water exchange credit agreements with other municipalties to ensure they have an adequate water supply going forward.
Recently, the town completed an agreement with Peoria to exchange water credits for wet water, and an agreement is in the works with Surprise for a similar agreement.
“This question started a couple years ago through some regional agency cooperation, where all three agencies were all part of the Bartlett Dam project, and we actually started talking at the staff level,” Kreuzwiesner said. “There was a discussion about how do we get access to our stored CAP supplies.
“Most of it was going into originally into the Hieroglyphics facility, which is in north Surprise,” Kreuzwiesner added. “It was through the organization that Peoria reached out to and said ‘You want to put some water here, and then maybe we can change agreements.'"
Cave Creek shifted its credits around through multiple permits with multiple agencies to get it done.
“I’ll give credit to the state agencies,” Kreuzwiesner said. “They came up with some unique solutions for us to help us bridge this gap.”
To ensure continuity of supply, Cave Creek has taken lead steps in coordinating with CAP and the Arizona Water Banking Authority to recover stored water credits and implement water exchange agreements.
“Cave Creek was the very first entity that came to us for one of those agreements,” Mast said. “They have been extremely proactive about making sure that they would have the types of agreements in place in order to meet their wet water needs for next year.”
Mayor Robert Morris and Mayor-elect Kathryn Royer, the current Vice Mayor, have worked together for the past eight years getting to the table to discuss the agreements.
“I’m so glad that Kathryn got elected to succeed me,” Morris said. “Kathryn has the contacts within the Arizona Department of Water Resources and CAP and her background in water helps.
“It’s almost become a relationship business,” Morris added. “To call and be able to get meeting in order to get it pushed to the forefront is big in our industry.”
Cave Creek also changed to an automated metering infrastructure water meter for its customers.
“I didn’t realize how significant the advanced metering infrastructure would be for us, but I’ve realized that that’s probably one of the best things that we could do,” Kreuzwiesner said.
“As we move forward, water is going to be more important for a small community like us, and we want everybody who is using the water, you know, to be watchful of it,” Kreuzwiesner added.
Morris praised Kreuzwiesner for the job he has done working on the water situation.
“Shawn has done a wonderful job,” Morris said. “Trying to run a department and managing a capital budget, I couldn’t be more happier of the job he has done.”
Next on Cave Creek’s agenda is to update its drought management plan.
“Conservation, specifically outdoor use of water has to be at the front and center,” Morris said. “People are learning to conserve on the inside use. We just have to have a stronger conservation program.”
“The drought is not overnight,” Kreuzwiesner said. “Over 27 years into the drought, overall, I think I’m hearing it more than the news media, but I think I’m more alert to that.
“But yeah, how do we get the average citizen to understand that?” Kreuzwiesner added. “You know, you just can’t turn on your faucet when you want to. This is a resource that we have to manage for everybody.”
Jeff Wendt
Reporter | Phoenix/Cave Creek
jwendt@iniusa.org
Meet Jeff
Jeff Wendt started at Independent Newsmedia in January 2023, after 25 years working for Gannett and The Arizona Republic. Started as a high school sports scoretaker, worked up to reporting high school sports and then became an associate high school sports editor in 2002. Also worked in the Design Studio as a copy editor.
Community: Jeff serves on the Board of Elders at his local church.
Education: Arizona State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and Mass Communication
Random fact: Attended Game 2 of the 2001 World Series.
Hobbies: Playing video games (yes still the kid in me), watching reality TV, playing poker.
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