David Modeer, Phoenix Water Director, to head Central Arizona Project

David Modeer, director of the Phoenix water department, has been tapped to become the next general manager of the Central Arizona Project. The 336-mile long system of pipelines and canals helps bring water to 80 percent of the state's population. In a Tucson Citizen article, Modeer explains that the Central Arizona Water...

By Ray Stern

December 9, 2008

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David Modeer, director of the Phoenix water department, has been tapped to become the next general manager of the Central Arizona Project.

The 336-mile long system of pipelines and canals helps bring water to 80 percent of the state's population.

In a Tucson Citizen article, Modeer explains that the Central Arizona Water Conservation District board of directors, which oversees the CAP, offered him the job after the former general manager, Sid Wilson, announced he would retire.

Modeer has only been on the job in Phoenix since April. Prior to that, he was the city of Tucson's water director for 10 years and had managed municipal water supplies in Pennsylvania for 26 years before that. His arrival in Phoenix made local news last spring.

Modeer, a CAP board member, told the Arizona Daily Star last year he had "no doubt" that the CAP water supplies will run short periodically in the next five to 10 years:

It does not look good. If everything everyone is saying about the longtime climate or global warming is true, it looks worse for the future.

Modeer is a pragmatist when it comes to water issues: While in Tucson, he was a proponent of using treated effluent as drinking water for the growing desert city.

If there are shortages in the next few years, Modeer seems like the guy who will know how to best deal with the problem.

Click here for the CAP news release on Modeer's new gig. -- Ray Stern

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.