Brandon Loomis

The Republic | azcentral.com

Team must partner with a public entity to help execute its plan

Ideal plans would have ability to grow or be replicated

Last year's winner unveils it 'Beyond the Mirage' website

Registration is now open for teams or individuals to develop a collaborative plan to do something about the water challenges Arizona faces.

The Arizona Community Foundation announced in March that it will award $250,000 to the team with the best proposal to use technology or market solutions to improve an Arizona community’s water security. You can register online.

The deadline to enter is July 15. Submissions will be due by Aug. 12. The judging will begin immediately after that.

“It could come from a high school student or a college student,” foundation President and CEO Steven Seleznow said.

And it could come from a rancher, a public official, a technology company or a water utility.

The winning team must include a government partner to help execute the plan, whether it be to conserve water, reuse water or otherwise bolster a community’s water prospects. Ideally, according to foundation officials, the winner could ultimately have the project broadened statewide or replicated in other communities.

The prize money comes from foundation donors. Republic Media and Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy are partners with the foundation, promoting the effort through publicity and research.

The prize follows up on last year’s award of $100,000 to a team from Tucson that has produced a multimedia water-consciousness campaign to educate Arizonans about their future water challenges.

The team unveiled its “Beyond the Mirage” website at last month's event at the Desert Botanical Garden and has produced a one-hour documentary for public television.

An Innovative Water Awareness Campaign and Web Experience

Now the focus is on action, requiring collaboration from the private and public sectors.

“In order to achieve scale,” Seleznow said, “we believe all those people need to come together to design what they think will move their community forward.”

Arizona and the Southwest face the twin challenges of a growing population and a Colorado River water supply that is stressed by climate change. Meanwhile, rural areas relying on groundwater are using it faster than nature can replenish it.

Water experts credit past Arizona leaders with building the dams, canals and underground water-storage areas that so far have kept the state from experiencing crisis on the scale that caused California to ration water last year. Looking ahead, though, the federal government projects shortages unless the region acts.

Currently, the Bureau of Reclamation projects a 59 percent chance that Arizona will face first-ever restrictions on Colorado River water in 2018 because of a diminishing supply in Lake Mead. Such a hit to the Central Arizona Project is expected to affect farmers and not cities, at least directly.

Still, the message of a less-full canal delivering water to the Phoenix area isn’t a good one. Already, some media coverage and books have suggested that Phoenix is unsustainable, said The Arizona Republic's editorial page director, Phil Boas.

“I would imagine those voices will get louder if Arizona can’t demonstrate that we’ve got this covered,” he said.

Republic Media, which includes The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, partnered on the New Arizona Prize in hopes of inspiring new talent and energy to match that of the water planners who have prevented crisis before, Boas said.

“It’s our (generation’s) turn to step up,” he said.

How to enter

Rules for submitting proposals will be online this spring at https://wic.newarizonaprize.org/. Entry deadline is July 15. Submission deadline is Aug. 12. The foundation expects to choose a winner by late summer or fall.