No one runs for a seat on the Central Arizona Water Conservation District board for the glory. The position is unpaid. Meetings are long, the discussions often mundane. Many voters barely know the job exists until it shows up on the ballot.

Yet this year, the board appears to have become a "tea party" battleground.

In a reflection of how far political ideology has burrowed into elections, tea-party activists are gunning for a majority on the nonpartisan board that manages the Central Arizona Project, the state's largest single source of water.

Most of the tea-party-backed candidates lack experience in managing natural resources. They are campaigning almost solely on fiscal issues, arguing that the district needs to cut costs, rein in spending and reduce the property taxes levied in Maricopa, Pima and Pinal counties to support water deliveries in the CAP Canal.

The activists say they can take control of the board if their "good government" slate of five candidates is elected on Nov. 2. The five, including one incumbent, would join an existing "Stop the Spending" coalition on the 15-member panel, which oversees the district's $248 million budget.

The political drama is rare for what has been one of the state's least-ideological elected bodies.

Several current and former CAP board members worry about the partisan tone of the race and say the coalition is too narrowly focused on micromanaging the district instead of setting broader policies.

Such an approach, they say, could become a distraction as Arizona and the other six Colorado River states work to secure future water resources amid concerns about growing demand, drought and the effects of climate change.

"Our board is a nonpartisan board," said Sharon Megdal, a University of Arizona water researcher who represents Pima County on the board. "We don't run with any party affiliation, and I think that's for a good reason. The issue of providing reliable water in a responsible manner is not a partisan issue."

Pushing for change

The lure of the CAP board - 14 people are seeking five open seats this year - is not easy to explain. Its members manage a significant resource, 1.5 million acre-feet of water a year, and set property-tax and water rates in Maricopa, Pima and Pinal counties.

Yet they earn no salary and devote long hours attending meetings and poring over thick notebooks of background material.

The board is unlike most other water-management agencies in the seven states that share water from the Colorado River. The one board sets policy, negotiates future water resources on the river and sells water to cities and farmers, and its members are elected. In other states, water boards are more often appointed and rarely handle so many responsibilities.

The 15 board members are apportioned among the three counties that receive water and pay property taxes, with 10 elected from Maricopa County, four from Pima and one from Pinal. Five of Maricopa County's seats will be filled on Nov. 2; other seats come open every two years.

Since 1971, when the board was established, an eclectic array of people has served, some with impressive political pedigrees. In 1987, four former Arizona governors held seats at the same time: Jack Williams, Howard Pyle, Sam Goddard and Paul Fannin.

Sam Goddard's son, Terry Goddard, now the Democratic candidate for governor of Arizona, won election to the board in 2000, then resigned two years later after being elected attorney general.

Historically, the CAP board has set policy and given its hired general manager and his deputies leeway to run day-to-day operations and manage the budget, which in recent years has grown slowly, along with the workforce, which now numbers about 475 people.

The board seeks recommendations from the staff on water rates, which have increased to reflect rising delivery costs, and property-tax rates, which have been cut three times in the past 10 years.

The shift on the board started four years ago, when a slate of candidates, most of them new to water issues, upset four incumbents, including the board's president and its longest-serving member.

The newcomers had taken advantage of the board's low visibility and launched a grass-roots campaign using the Republican Party's organization to push their goals of cutting costs and reducing expenses at the district. Although short on water-resource experience, the candidates and their supporters had visited precinct meetings and other party gatherings with easy instructions: Vote for all the women on the ballot.

It worked. Maricopa County voters elected former state Rep. Jean McGrath, former Mesa City Councilwoman Janie Thom, businesswoman Gayle Burns and educator Pam Pickard, along with incumbent Lisa Atkins.

The four new members elected in 2006 wasted little time in their efforts to expose what they saw as wasteful spending and inefficient operational procedures.

They pressed staff members with questions about often-routine construction and maintenance contracts and began challenging the way money was spent in areas as diverse as building materials and employee travel expenses, though they lacked a consistent-enough majority to force significant changes.

Now, the activists are making it clear they aren't finished. In a widely distributed e-mail seeking support for the tea-party slate, McGrath said the 2010 candidates are dedicated to cutting costs. She singled out the district's policy to pay 100 percent of its employees' contributions to the state retirement system.

"These candidates, along with the few conservatives already on the Board, will have the votes to eliminate this unconstitutional idiocy immediately upon taking their oath of office," McGrath wrote.

Megdal, the Pima County board member, has voiced concerns at board meetings with what she and others see as micromanaging by the coalition members.

"The board hires a general manager who provides oversight of day-to-day operations," said Megdal, director of the University of Arizona's Water Resources Research Center. "Of course, we approve the budget, tax and water rates and set policy. The policy aspects of our job are very important. I do not believe it is our job to micromanage."

Limited experience

Like the four conservatives who won election in 2006, the tea-party-backed slate brings limited experience in water-resource issues, particularly in contrast to other candidates on the 2010 ballot.

The exception is incumbent Mark Lewis, a water-resources consultant who also has served on the board of Salt River Project, the region's other major water provider. He shares the limited-government vision of the conservative coalition.

"We should remain very focused on delivery of cheap, clean water to cities, farms and tribes," he said. "We have one duty: To deliver water on a wholesale basis and conserve and store water for a non-rainy day."

The other four coalition-supported candidates are Cynthia Moulton, a retired nurse and tea-party activist; John Rosado, a retired software engineer also active in tea-party politics; T.C. Bundy, a business consultant; and Raymond Johnson, an insurance broker.

Outside the coalition are candidates with lengthy water-resource histories: incumbent Tim Bray, a water consultant; Sid Wilson, who retired in 2008 as general manager of the CAP; Jim Holway, a former Department of Water Resources regulator; Ray Jones, former president of Arizona American Water Co.; and Karl Kohlhoff, a longtime municipal water consultant.

Most of the non-coalition candidates see opportunities for the CAP to take a leadership role, both within Arizona and on the Colorado River, where the seven states are seeking to augment supplies with proposals such as a water desalination plant in Mexico.

Those opportunities shouldn't be ignored for partisan seasons, said Grady Gammage, a former CAP board member and a senior research fellow at Arizona State University's Morrison Institute of Public Policy.

"The CAP is the closest thing there is to a Sun Corridor institution," said Gammage, who has studied long-term growth and resource issues in the urban area that stretches from Phoenix to Tucson. "There is nothing that binds Phoenix and Tucson together except the CAP. That means it has a role in our future."

Gammage said he does not oppose reducing costs. Reducing property taxes, for example, could shift more of the financial burden of the district's operations to water users. But he and others worry that a narrowly focused board could ignore the bigger-picture issues and leave Arizona vulnerable in a drought or a water shortage.

"You could get someone on the board who has little knowledge but who is willing to listen and learn," he said. "But if you have little knowledge and won't listen, that's a dangerous combination."