A new era in water resources is being proclaimed by those who study and those who participate in water policy. (See, for example, Anderson, 1983; Weatherford and Brown, 1982). Water policy has moved from a period of water resource development to a new age of water management. Instead of building new sources of water supply to meet new demands, existing supplies will be made to serve through a reallocation from low- to higher-value uses and greater efforts at water conservation. The market system is supposed to play a much larger role in the emerging era. Increasing water prices will cause conservation and encourage the sale of water from less productive to more productive water rights holders.

Arizona in general and Tucson in particular provide an opportunity to test against reality the extent to which a new age in water has already dawned and the degree to which the vestiges of previous patterns of decision making and policy continue. The previous era of water development was driven by an overwhelming commitment to growth and development in the West (Wiley and Gotlieb, 1985; Fradkin, 1984). But has the attraction of expansion subsided as water officials turn from construction to management?

The era of development was criticized for its large environmental externalities that drowned free-flowing streams and buried beautiful and irreplaceable canyons under reservoirs. Whether contemporary water management in Arizona is more environmentally sensitive remains to be seen. In the age of water development, beneficiaries seldom paid the costs of development. Key to this analysis is whether the beneficiaries of water policy in Arizona now pay the costs or whether costs are still consigned to an unaware public and future generations.