When U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs introduced the Colorado River Basin Water Security and Infrastructure Act in September, he put a federal stamp on something Arizona farmers and ranchers have been saying for years: you cannot conserve your way out of a shrinking river, and you cannot keep treating irrigated land as the spare water tank for cities, data centers and growth.

The bill would cut permitting delays, stand up a Basin-wide Water Augmentation Program with a 2-to-1 federal cost share, and point money toward desalination, reuse, storage, conveyance, aquifer recharge, salt cedar removal, a full-capacity Yuma Desalting Plant, binational desalination with Mexico and capture of California ocean discharges.

That is not theory. That is a chance to look again — hard — at every real way to add usable water instead of only moving shortage onto the people who grow food.

Arizona Farm Bureau farm and ranch members already know the arithmetic. Agriculture uses about 72 percent of the water Arizona takes from groundwater and surface supplies.

That water does not vanish. It leaves the farm as lettuce, milk, beef, cotton, citrus, melons, dates, wheat and the alfalfa that keeps dairies running. When that water gets scarce or too expensive, acres idle, packing sheds slow, rural tax bases shrink and the winter vegetable industry that feeds much of the country starts going away.

Water augmentation means adding to the pool: creating, recovering, storing or importing usable supply.

Conservation uses less. Augmentation grows the pie. Both matter.

The Water World of Augmentation


Water augmentation is any action that adds usable water supply or makes more of the existing supply available for use, instead of only cutting demand.

In water management, that usually means creating, recovering, storing or importing water so farms, cities and the environment have more to work with.

Common augmentation tools include:

  • Desalination — removing salt from seawater or brackish groundwater
  • Recycled or reclaimed water — treating wastewater so it can be used again for irrigation, industry or recharge
  • New storage and groundwater recharge — capturing wet-year or flood water in reservoirs or aquifers for later use (Something Arizona does well)
  • Stormwater capture — keeping rain that would otherwise run off
  • Transfers or importation — moving water from a basin with extra supply to one that is short
  • On-farm or canal projects that create real extra yield — lining, piping or drainage reuse, when the saved water is available as new supply

It is the opposite of relying only on conservation, fallowing or “buy and dry” transfers.

In agriculture, the term comes up when growers and groups such as Arizona Farm Bureau and the Family Farm Alliance argue that cities and farms cannot keep splitting a shrinking river, such as Colorado River. They want new or reused gallons, so food production is not the default source of water for growth.

Desalination is Drought-Proof — and Usually Too Expensive to Put on Wheat and Alfalfa

Desalination is the idea people picture first: Take salty ocean water or salty groundwater, push it through membranes and make fresh water. Israel and Spain already irrigate high-value greenhouses this way. Arizona agencies have even studied coastal desalination in Mexico, paired with water exchanges, as one future tool.

Here is the part that rarely makes the viral post: most farmers cannot pay what desalinated water costs.

In some estimates, desalting brackish groundwater for crops could cost around $800 per acre-foot. Ocean water, once you add the energy to clean it and the cost to pump it inland and uphill, can run into the thousands. One study of delivering Pacific desalinated water to high-desert cities in New Mexico put the full cost above $2,000 per acre-foot.

That gap is the whole ball game. A pistachio or greenhouse tomato grower facing a cut-off well might pay a premium. A farm growing wheat, cotton or the alfalfa that feeds Arizona dairy cows generally cannot.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has said even the cheaper end of modern seawater desalination is still a stretch for most farmers without subsidies, nearby plants, and high-value crops.

So, when farm organizations support desalination research, they are usually not asking every grower to buy ocean water at city prices. They are asking cities to develop drought-proof supplies so river water can stay on food-producing land. That distinction matters if Arizonans want their winter vegetables.

Restoring the Yuma Desalting Plant to full capacity is specifically in the Biggs bill, and for good reason: it sits in the heart of winter vegetable country.

Recycled Water: The Option That Fits a Farm Budget

If there is a hero in this story for everyone, it is recycled water — treated wastewater cleaned to a standard that matches the crop and meets regulatory requirements.

This is not science fiction. In the 2026 updated study “A Review of Reclaimed Water Use for Irrigation of Produce Crops and Food Safety Aspects in the United States,” properly treated water can be a useful extra water source in dry regions.

Current risk studies do not show major illness risks from common gut pathogens. But rules differ by state, buyers are wary, and a few hazards are still poorly studied.

Arizona has used recycled or reclaimed water for landscapes, industry, recharge and non-edible farm crops for decades. Reclaimed water comprises an estimated 5% of Arizona’s annual use, according to the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

A University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) 2023 Arroyo factsheet estimates that reclaimed water comprises 2.3%, or 119,000 acre-feet per year, of agricultural water use.

An on-farm example involves Arizona dairies. Every dairy in the state recycles the water they use — typically three to four times after original use, though some dairies recycle water 5 to 6 times.

Mesa also built a 10.5-mile pipeline to transport recycled water produced and treated by the city to the Gila River Indian Community, primarily for agricultural use. For every 10 gallons of water that flows to Gila River, the city gets 8 gallons of the tribe’s Colorado River water, which it delivers to taps.

Cost is why reuse beats many headlines. Cleaning wastewater for irrigation is usually far cheaper than turning ocean water into farm water. 

A Spanish study comparing the two found recycled irrigation water returned about $17 in benefits for every $1 invested, versus about $4 for desalinated seawater. In the Southwest, researchers have ranked filtered, disinfected municipal wastewater as the most affordable “new” irrigation source, ahead of desalting brackish wells, treating oilfield water or desalinating the sea.

While recycled water is a reliable resource – because residents and businesses are always using sinks, flushing toilets and sending water down drains – it is not an unlimited resource.

As water becomes more expensive and cities emphasize conservation, less wastewater could be available for recycling. Cities also are increasingly capturing this water to treat to drinking standards and send to taps, leaving less available for agriculture.

Moving Water from Wet Places to Dry Ones

The West already moves water on a heroic scale. Southern California and Arizona, along with other western states, have depended on transfers from the Colorado River for decades.

Denver drinks water that started on the other side of the Rockies. Arizona’s Central Arizona Project is itself a transfer: Colorado River water lifted and carried across the desert to farms and cities.

The Central Arizona Project is an engineering marvel, making the desert more productive.

Some transfers protect food production. The Imperial Irrigation District’s long-term deals send conserved water to San Diego and other urban users while funding canal lining and on-farm upgrades — so the winter vegetable industry can keep running instead of being bought out.

Other transfers are the ones rural communities fear: “buy and dry,” where a city purchases a farm’s water right and the field goes idle for good.

Family Farm Alliance members have participated in temporary, paid transfers in places like Imperial, the Klamath and the Central Valley. Their preference is the first kind: conservation that keeps land in farms, not a permanent shrinking of the landscape.

Arizona is now exploring a new generation of ideas — modernizing irrigation and trading the savings, treating wastewater on both sides of the border, even pairing Mexican desalination with river exchanges. Those projects are years from a faucet.

They show the direction, though: create water where it is abundant or wasted, then share it through rules people can live with.

Arizona irrigation districts are looking at ways to import water from other places, and some deals feel close.

But while giant pipelines from faraway wet regions make good drawings and hard politics, it’s tough to pencil out the cost.

Why? Because water is heavy, and pumping it long distances, particularly uphill or over mountain ranges, is not only costly but heavily energy intensive.

What Farm Bureau and Other Farm Groups are Actually Asking

Strip away the acronyms and the ask is consistent.

The Family Farm Alliance wants new storage, recharge, recycling and desalination so growing cities are not built on top of the farm water supply. Its 2026 gathering is themed “Growing the Pie.”

Farm Bureau organizations want affordable, reliable water for food production. Locally, that includes support for recycled water pipelines and brackish treatment.

Nationally, Farm Bureau has also fought for clearer clean-water rules so ordinary ditches, reuse plants and recharge basins are not buried in permit confusion that makes projects slower and costlier.

The California Farm Water Coalition, which works with those same Western groups, puts it in a slogan everyone concerned with water can steal: The water farmers use does not stay on the farm. It comes back in the food we buy.

Why This Is Not Only a City Argument

Price and availability hit first. If irrigation water gets scarce, lettuce, milk, beef and melons do not pause politely. Some acres fallow. Some go to solar. Some production leaves the country.

Communities come next. Irrigation underwrites packing sheds, trucking, dairies, implement dealers and the tax base that keeps rural schools open. Idle land is not a free environmental win. It is a smaller local food system.

Honesty about habitat matters too. Taking water off farms does not automatically “give it back to nature.” Return flows support habitat and, in some basins, later city wells.

Recycled water on fields can keep nutrients out of rivers. Desalination has energy and ocean costs of its own. Adults compare whole systems.

The bargain is already in the books. Inexpensive farm deliveries exist because earlier generations built dams, canals and CAP.

New reuse plants and desalination capacity will exist only if this generation pays for pipes, membranes and treatment — and if federal cost-share shows up. Using the old system as a discount tank for new lawns and server farms is how a food state talks itself out of being a food state.

Farmers will keep chasing more crop per drop. They have to.

The test for any project that hits the news — including the Biggs’ bill — is simple: does it create more usable water, or does it only move the shortage onto the people growing dinner?

If Arizona food is going to stay on Arizona plates, recycling what cities already used, banking wet years for dry ones, finishing Yuma desalting and building expensive new municipal supplies so river water can stay in the food system are not side conversations.

They are the work.