The Big Thirst: How Jack Pfister Helped Arizona Face Its Water Challenges – Casa Grande

Whiskey’s for drinking, and water’s for fighting. The old quip about the West seems truer than ever as growth and climate change put pressure on water supplies. But history shows that Arizonans can solve water problems without a gunfight. In recent decades, Jack Pfister was a leader in reaching agreements on divisive water issues. This presentation explores a wide variety of challenges – taming the floods that devastated the Phoenix metro areas, controlling groundwater pumping, funding the Central Arizona Project, resolving tribal water claims – and how, with his help, the state met them.

Kathleen Ingley is a freelance writer who specializes in the state’s pivotal issues. She relishes the challenge of engaging readers in the  complex subjects too often dismissed as boring, such as the state budget, water and energy. She was a reporter and editorial writer at the Arizona Republic, where her work  has included award-winning series on state trust land, the potential of solar energy, the threat of invasive plants, the increasing impact of the urban heat island and the challenge of growth (“An Acre an Hour: the Price of Sprawl”). She is the author of Water, Power and Persuasion: How Jack Pfister Helped Shape Modern Arizona.