Learn more about the history and importance of the System Use Agreement by reading and watching our new oral history featuring: 

Patrick Dent, CAP’s assistant general manager of water policy
Ken Seasholes, CAP’s resource planning and analysis manager
Leslie Meyers, Salt River Project’s associate general manager for water resources, formerly with the Bureau of Reclamation.

System Use Agreement. Three very simple words that essentially mean an Agreement on the Use of the CAP System.

The agreement is between the Central Arizona Water Conservation District and the Bureau of Reclamation. The idea of using the CAP canal to move additional water supplies– a concept known as wheeling – was conceived before water even began flowing through the aqueduct.

“The key concept of the System Use Agreement was flexibility to use the CAP system in a way that’s not just the standard – diverting water from the river and delivering it to customers,” says Ken Seasholes. “As we face reduced availability of our Colorado River supply, this is going to be even more important to fill in for supplies that are being reduced and to move new supplies. There’s a lot of interest in doing that and we have a system capable of delivering additional supplies.”

According to Leslie Meyers, “The concept of using this beautiful piece of infrastructure to move more than just CAP water was envisioned from the beginning of the project. I don’t think we could have envisioned then where we would be today, but I do think the agreement that we developed set us up very well for where we are today.”

Although the concept is decades old and the agreement itself was signed in 2017, the System Use Agreement was just used for the first time to move additional Colorado River water to the Town of Queen Creek. And it’s likely you will continue to hear the words System Use Agreement more and more as the years go on for wheeling, firming (using one supply to fill in when another is reduced) and exchanges (“trading” one supply for another).

“In terms of significance, the System Use Agreement is on the list with the 1968 Colorado River Basin Project Act, which authorized CAP construction,” says Patrick Dent. “It’s a culminating piece of legal and policy work that has become part of the framework we will use forever, helping us accomplish the mission of Central Arizona Project.”

The three who were interviewed all agreed that although the System Use Agreement involved a great deal of work and compromise, it is a document that will serve us well into the future, allowing for flexible and creative ways to use the CAP system to deliver water to central and southern Arizona.

Read the oral history transcript or watch the video.

Learn more about the System Use Agreement.