Arizona SRP: Election Time Is Around the Corner

As many know, a large amount of Arizona citizens depend on SRP, Salt River Project, to receive electricity and water. What many don’t know, is that coming soon this spring, an election will be held to decide who will be making the decisions that will affect our everyday life. The cost of air quality, how we get our water, and the ever soaring price of electricity all falls on the back of some of the largest agricultural foundations in the great state of Arizona. With a little over 2 million using water and electricity through SRP, it will be a much more important election than what the voter results will entail.

This year’s election, will decide 9 seats on the SRP’s board. SRP, since being established in 1903, was actually here before Arizona had been inducted. Still being run by large growers, farmers, and ranchers has had an impact on AZ for more than a century.

Originally, SRP was established as a water-users association, while the votes are still weighted by how many acres a property owner holds, 682,000 property owners will be eligible to vote for the Salt River Project’s board, including president and vice president.

While many large landowners have sold to housing districts, urbanizing the state has not diminished the direct affect on Arizonians that the SRP board holds. Unfortunately, this will not be grasped as essential as it should considering the drastic changes that are possible with the increases in water cost and electricity.
With the most important decisions being brought before board this year, electricity and water-routing will be of the utmost essential this year. With the average household paying approximately $1500 annually for electricity, this year, those rates may rise.

Thankfully, for the last century we have seen that rates have stayed manageable mostly in-part to having agricultural families in direct control of how those rates are handled. Agriculture has played a large part in Arizona’s history, and while many farms are going by the way side, it’s nice to see that we can depend on such a substantial portion of our state to assist rural AZ in keeping these rates affordable.

With Arizona rates for electricity staying 5% below the state average, we can only hope that when the votes are cast this March 22nd-April 6th we see a continuous effort in keeping with Arizona’s previous grand track record on water and electricity conservation.

For more information, or to find your voting center refer to http://www.srpnet.com/elections/district.aspx.