SRP historical timeline

Visionary president Theodore Roosevelt, who knew that the future of the United States lay beyond the Mississippi River and even beyond the Great Plains, signs into law the National Reclamation Act. The Act allows money from the sale of public lands in the West to be made available for water reclamation projects to enhance the growth and settlement of the western U.S. territories and states. The establishment of the National Reclamation Act comes at a time when the Salt River Valley is in the grip of a terrible drought. Among the ranchers and farmers already settled in the area, the drought confirms the need for a water storage system to assure a water supply during dry years.

Ranchers and farmers in metropolitan Phoenix band together to manage water rights and settle water usage disputes. Pledging more than 200,000 acres of their own land as collateral to repay federal loans to build a dam, they form the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association. Prior to his tenure as governor, Joseph H. Kibbey writes the Association's articles of incorporation.

On February 7, 1903, the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association is formally incorporated and becomes the first multi-purpose water and power reclamation project started under the new National Reclamation Act.

Dam construction begins on the Salt River. On September 20, 1906, the cornerstone of Roosevelt Dam is laid under the direction of supervisory engineer and dam designer Louis C. Hill.

The power from the Roosevelt Dam site is delivered to Phoenix Light and Power Company, thus establishing hydropower as the "paying partner" for the water reclamation project and establishing SRP as the first multipurpose reclamation project.

The Kent Decree establishes the basis for water rights in Arizona. Priority assigned to these rights survives today.

Major work on Roosevelt Dam, the largest solid masonry dam in the world, is completed at the cost of $10.3 million. Its importance to sustaining life and vitality in the Salt River Valley is immediately felt. The same year, water stored in the newly created Roosevelt Lake is released to save crops from certain loss. In addition, 131,000 acres are irrigated -the most ever in the Phoenix area.

Former President Theodore Roosevelt arrives in Arizona to dedicate Roosevelt Dam. In his speech, Roosevelt names the National Reclamation Act and the Panama Canal as two of the greatest accomplishments of his administration. At the time of the dedication, Roosevelt Lake is less than half full, but it contains more than 500,000 a cre-feet of water and reaches 160 feet up the dam. It is enough water to sustain the Phoenix area with two full years of irrigation, even if there were no further inflow.

Arizona achieves statehood as the 48^th state on February 14.

A byproduct of the dam and canal systems is hydroelectric power. SRP enters into a contract with Inspiration Consolidated Copper Company of Miami to supply hydroelectric power to mines. This assures the viability of SRP's electric system.

The Salt River Valley Water Users' Association, which acted as a client, advisor and liaison to the U.S. Reclamation Service since its founding in 1903, takes over management and responsibility of the Salt River Project. In the Association's contract with the federal government, the United States retains title to the project dams, canals and hydropower plants, and SRP remains a federal reclamation project. The Salt River Valley Water Users' Association, however, assumes the responsibility and cost of the operation, including maintenance and further improvements.

The Association is responsible for moving water through miles of canals and ditches. The canal and lateral system is divided and each division is under the control of an Association "zanjero" who operates the gates and checks where water is delivered.

Citrus trees are planted in the Valley; one of the four C's that has defined Arizona through much of the 20th Century - copper, cattle, citrus, and cotton.

A study shows the water table Project-wide is raising at a rate of 1.5 feet per year. More than 50,000 acres of land-roughly 1/5 of the Project's total lands-are threatened with a subsurface water level of 10 feet or less. The soil is waterlogged and the subsequent salt deposits render the land useless. Association shareholders assess themselves $400,000 to dig wells and install pumps to remove the rising groundwater that is then routed to drainage ditches that carry it to the river to be dumped.

Further advancing the "paying partnership" of power and water, the Association's leadership finances and builds three additional dams along the Salt River to include more hydroelectric generating capabilities: Mormon Flat Dam in 1923, Horse Mesa Dam in 1924 and Stewart Mountain Dam in 1928.

Using the concept that power revenues can offset water costs, Salt River Valley Water Users' Association embarks on an effort to extend electricity service to a growing residential and rural customer base, preceding the New Deal rural electrification project by 10 years.

After the stock market crash, the United States slides into the Great Depression. The crash and the weakness of farm prices has a major impact on the agriculture business in Phoenix.

Mining, the state's major industry, initially sustains production levels comparable to 1920s levels. But by 1932, the global price of copper falls 70 percent and many mines close or curtail operations, leaving thousands of people unemployed. The Salt River Valley Water Users' Association loses substantial power sales to its largest customers, the mines. With unemployment high, and miners and their families leaving the area, farmers lose an important market for the sale of their goods, too. Thus, both of the Association's major revenue sources-water assessments and power sales-are threatened at the same time. The Association's strategy to combat these circumstances is simple: reduce operating costs and devise ways to alleviate the financial burden on shareholders. SRP renegotiates its debt and thus helps Valley farmers by keeping water assessments down.

SRP receives approval to dam the Verde River through the construction of Bartlett Dam. The dam is erected in 1,000 days and results in improved water supplies without raising expenses, while simultaneously providing much needed labor opportunities for unemployed Arizonans.

Maricopa County authorizes the formation of the second part of the Salt River Project, the Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District. The District is formed as a unit of government, and serves much of the same areas as the Water Users' Association. The Power District is able to issue municipal bonds and initially sells $13 million. Proceeds from this sale, which are backed by the Association's ability to levy assessments against shareholders, are used immediately to call and redeem the Association's outstanding higher-interest bonds, thus assuring the financial health of the Water Users' Association.

SRP and Phelps Dodge negotiate the building of Horseshoe Dam, the second dam on the Verde River and the sixth dam in the SRP system. The dam is paid for by Phelps Dodge Corporation with financing from the federal Defense Plant Corporation in order to supply enough water to Phelps Dodge copper mines to meet production needs during World War II. In the deal, SRP would manage the dam and the resulting 60,000 additional acre-feet of stored water.

Post World War II brings unprecedented growth to the Salt River Valley. Hundreds of acres of farmlands are subdivided for home building. The total power generated and purchased exceeds all prior years.

Widespread use of air conditioning begins in the Valley, forever changing the way people live in the desert, and creating new demands for electricity.

The Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement & Power District, which has existed since 1937, becomes the entity responsible for the operation of the power division and dams.

The Association signs the first of a series of contracts, which provides up to $6 million in improvements via the Rehabilitation and Betterment Program. These improvements to the irrigation system are necessary to manage the post-war boom in the Salt River Valley and to meet the changing needs of the area as it grows from an agriculture area into an urban center. SRP enters into contracts with the City of Phoenix and other area cities to deliver water to the growing urban areas. Under the agreements, SRP provides a much more stable water supply to the cities, but it is the cities' responsibility to treat and deliver water to the users.

SRP rebuilds the power system with the construction of Kyrene Steam Power Plants 1 and 2. Improvements to the power grid include the addition of 60-cycle power, virtually eliminating power outages common in the early '40s.

The original $10.3 million debt on Roosevelt Dam is repaid to the federal government.

Rod McMullin is appointed general manager of both the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association and the Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement & Power District. This marks the beginning of the integration of the two organizations into one on every level except the legal basis of each organization. The Association remains a nonprofit corporation that provides irrigation and drinking water to 250,000 acres of subscribed land in the Phoenix metropolitan area; the District remains the power supplier to a 2,900 square mile area and is the financial patron of the Association.

SRP becomes involved in initiatives outside of its traditional power service area by partnering with other utility companies in the coordinated development of a regional power system and helps to plan and pay for two large new power plants and many miles of long-distance transmission lines.

The Central Arizona Project enabling legislation is passed - authorizing construction of a 330-mile-long canal from the Colorado River along the Arizona/California border to Phoenix and then Tucson, thus allowing Arizona to use its share of the Colorado's water. The Central Arizona Project is another major water construction and management project in the state and SRP lobbies heavily for its passage.

SRP embarks on the biggest construction projects it has ever attempted-the Navajo Generating Station in Page, Arizona for a consortium of owners and, later, the coal-fired Coronado Generating Station in St. Johns as sole proprietor. Navajo Generating Station will become one of the largest coal-fired power plants in the United States, generating 2.25 million kilowatts of electricity. Built on land within the Navajo Indian Reservation, the project launches a long, favorable and educational relationship between SRP and the Navajo Nation. Also in this year, SRP partners with APS and Tucson Gas & Electric to form the Arizona Nuclear Resource Study Group. The group is charged with studying loads, resource needs, potential hazards, and optimum installation size and siting locations for a proposed nuclear power generating station in Arizona.

The Arizona Nuclear Resource Study Group issues a report citing the feasibility of building a nuclear power station, capable of generating between 650 and 1,200 megawatts, in the desert west of Phoenix.

SRP and APS forms the Arizona Nuclear Power Project to implement plans for the design, construction and operation of a nuclear power station. As the plans proceed, economies of scale cause the plant to grow to three 1,270-megawatt units, or 3,810 megawatts total. The size of the plant outgrows the needs of Arizona, and shares of the plant are sold to utilities in New Mexico, Texas and California.

The first of three Navajo Generating Station units is completed followed by the second and third units in 1975 and 1976, respectively.

Construction on Palo Verde Nuclear Power Generating Station begins.

In response to non-SRP diversions of water on the Salt River watershed, as well as various claims to the waters of the Salt River, SRP petitions the Arizona State Land Department to begin a proceeding to determine conflicting rights on the waters of the Salt River. In 1976, SRP files a similar petition for the Verde River watershed. This will result in almost three decades of negotiations and political and legal activity, which is known as the General Stream Adjudication.

Reclamation Safety of Dams Act is passed authorizing work at 17 Western reclamation dams to bring them up to state-of-the-art safety standards. This Act and a reauthorization in 1984 eventually leads to funding of more than $400 million in improvements at Stewart Mountain and Roosevelt dams on the Salt River, and Bartlett and Horseshoe dams on the Verde River.

The first of three years of flooding begins, the worst of which occurs in February 1980, which threatens to flow over the top of Roosevelt Dam and the breach of Stewart Mountain Dam.

The Coronado Generating Station Unit One is completed near St. Johns, Ariz.

Arizona passes the Groundwater Management Act which mandates that water users in Maricopa, Pinal and Yavapai counties eventually cease pumping out more groundwater for use than is naturally or artificially recharged into the aquifer. This is the third major piece of legislation that shapes water supply and management in Arizona.

For the first time in its history, SRP's urban water use surpasses agricultural use, with 55 percent of its water deliveries going to urban areas and 45 percent of deliveries going to agricultural customers.

Unit One of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station produces energy for the first time.

As the population of the Salt River Valley grows to more than 3.5 million, SRP continues to meet the increased demands for water and power. Improvements are made to Roosevelt Dam and work begin on the Granite Reef Underground Storage Project to provide a reliable shared water reserve for the metropolitan area by channeling water from the Colorado River into the aquifer.

SRP transforms operations with the environmental movement by retrofitting new scrubbers on the Navajo Generating Station, and stocking white amur (a cleaning fish) in the canals. In addition, a $29-million commercial energy package, solar, landfill gas, new hydropower and climate crafted homes becomes a top priority.

Arizona Governor Jane Dee Hull signs the Electric Power Competition Act into law. SRP forms New West Energy, thus enabling SRP to compete for business outside of its traditional service territory.

New power sources are developed through the expansion of the SRP Kyrene Generating Station and the Santan Generating Station. SRP partners with Dynegy Inc. and NRG Energy to create a methane gas power generation station by establishing the Tri-Cities Landfill Generating Facility. Dramatic changes in the energy industry upset the traditional stability of energy markets, again testing SRP's ability to maintain stable, affordable power prices for customers.

SRP continues to manage the largest surface water supply in the state on behalf of its customers and shareholders. However, groundwater recharge and high technology monitoring of wells and the watershed replace earlier methods of tracking water supply and delivery.