Perhaps the most surprising moment in the discussion came when the conversation turned to infrastructure. According to Schweikert, a significant share of Arizona’s water loss comes from aging urban systems — in some cases 70-year-old pipes in major metro areas like Phoenix and Tucson. Host Chuck Warren noted estimates that 10–15% of water can be lost through leakage.

Schweikert agreed the number is substantial and highlighted a counterintuitive reality: sometimes it’s cheaper to build around failing pipes than to dig them up and repair them. It’s a reminder that water policy isn’t just about rivers and reservoirs — it’s also about underground infrastructure most voters never see.

The Most Uncomfortable Conversation in Water Policy

Where the discussion became most politically sensitive was agriculture. Schweikert cited research suggesting that roughly 47% of Arizona’s water goes toward cattle feed crops like hay and alfalfa. Importantly, he did not advocate cutting farmers off.

Instead, he described academic proposals exploring crop substitution incentives, including experimental alternatives like algae-based feed that could dramatically reduce water use. The broader point: meaningful water savings may require economic incentives, not mandates — and honest conversations about where the biggest consumption occurs.

Lessons From Israel

Schweikert also pointed to international examples, particularly advanced irrigation systems he observed in Israel. In some cases, similar crops are grown there using 20–25% of the water required in Arizona, thanks to precision drip irrigation and other technologies.

But again, he stressed the catch:

These upgrades are expensive. Which brings the conversation back to financing — and to the reality that water policy is as much about economics and energy costs as it is about conservation.

The Energy-Water Connection

One under-discussed factor Schweikert highlighted is the role of electricity in water pricing. In many Arizona communities, he noted, more than half of a water bill can be tied to the energy required to:

  • Pump water

  • Lift it across elevation changes

  • Store it in reservoirs

That means any long-term solution must also grapple with energy costs and infrastructure efficiency — another layer of complexity often missing from public debate.

A Warning Against “Trite Answers”

If there was one theme Schweikert returned to repeatedly, it was frustration with oversimplified political messaging.

“Complex problems often require complex solutions.”

He argued that voters should be skeptical of anyone — incumbent or challenger — who claims Arizona’s water challenges can be solved with a single policy move. The real path forward, in his view, involves many simultaneous changes working together over time.

Not flashy.

Not simple.

But potentially effective.

Why This Conversation Matters

Water remains one of the defining long-term issues for Arizona’s growth, housing market, and economic future. What this Breaking Battlegrounds discussion makes clear is that the debate is moving beyond drought headlines and into something more technical — and more consequential. The question isn’t just whether Arizona has water. It’s whether policymakers are willing to tackle the complicated, sometimes uncomfortable math required to manage it for the next century. And that conversation is only just beginning.

Transcript

Chuck Warren: All right, Governor, let’s talk about Governor.

Congressman David Schweikert: Well, let’s do a combination of Governor and the idiocy of Congress. So let’s do any way you want.

Chuck Warren: Well, I want to do this one quick. Here’s one question I get asked. I was telling people you were coming in today and they said they all know we have a problem with water. They don’t know what the solution is. What would a Governor Schweikert do on the water situation?

**Congressman David Schweikert: **All right now, if you can give me a three hour show and let me bring my slides in. The classic...

Chuck Warren: Sydney will set that up.

Congressman David Schweikert: No, I’m serious about this. I beg for all of us that care about water, which should be every Arizonan. Never ever ever use what you just said, the solution. It turns out there’s a hundred things we’re gonna do. It turns out an ultimate solution is a unified theory of, okay, here’s we’re gonna have to change some infrastructure.

Over here, we’re going to have to create some incentives. And then you have to first also understand the hierarchy. This is surface water. We have a couple of sources of that. Surface water that’s Colorado River based. Surface water that’s internal watershed based. Groundwater, groundwater rights. Severability on some of those rights. Our tribal agreements. Arizona has enough water.

Part of it is where it’s at, how do you move it, and how do you get to it? And there’s crazy things. I sat down with a group of professors, well, two professors, from U of A a couple weeks ago. They were working on this thing saying, give me the 100 solutions from the least effective, hey, we want you to put in this landscaping, to the most effective, and it’s effective divided by money.

I’ll do a diversion dam up on the Salt River. So the three times a decade we’re running water down the Salt River, we can have it settle. It’s a sediment type of dam where you let it settle and you put it in the CAP and run it to Pinal County and Pima County and allow the CAP water that would have gone there and stored in Lake Pleasant. Well, that costs maybe $140 million.

Down to what was fascinating in our hierarchy list that we’re building. We’re still not done with it. In the middle are leaky pipes.

Chuck Warren: Like 10% to 15% of our water goes into leaky pipes.

Congressman David Schweikert: I’m impressed. I’ve never had anyone else that knew that. Even I knew it was big. I didn’t realize it was that huge. In Tucson, Phoenix, and our others, where you have 70-year-old pipes. And it turns out sometimes it’s, you don’t repair them, you go around them. It’s cheaper to go around them.

Chuck Warren: That makes sense.

Congressman David Schweikert: With new equipment, then dig it up, and then repair it. But you also now have to have uncomfortable conversations because people, as I say this, want you to be calm, those professors that sat down with me, they were promoting a solution, saying, David, here’s one of our charts. God knows I now have enough charts. Almost 47% of the water in Arizona was actually going to cattle feed.

Hay and alfalfa. Now their proposal wasn’t to cut it off. Their proposal was saying, you know, you do realize if we would do some substitution of other crops. Now they were partially promoting a type of algae that actually apparently is really good for cattle and makes the cattle really tasty and uses a fraction of a fraction or fraction and yet has remarkable yields because of how warm it is here.

And saying, look, if you could provide an incentive to do some of this substitution, you actually have plenty of water, just in that one category. If 47% of your water goes to cattle feed. And there’s where you actually have to do an, I’m not rambling, I’m trying to explain, the real solution is lots of solutions.

Chuck Warren: Right, it’s not one, there’s not one home run.

Congressman David Schweikert: And there’s no sort of silver bullet in this. And in some ways, I’m not sure you want a silver bullet. If you’re building a system that’s going to be robust for the next century, turns out lots of things are, you know, I love technology. I’m a technology geek. I actually went to Israel about, God, almost a decade ago. And part of my tour with my wife is we went out and saw agriculture where they were growing same products as we do in Arizona. And they were doing it for like 20, 25% of the water because of the irrigation, the drip systems, and those things.

Okay, wonderful, we can do that. It’s expensive. How do you finance it? So some of this also becomes about money. When you pay your water bill, almost half that water bill in many places, more than half, is just electricity. You have to lift it up, you have to store it. And so you got lots of people that are really, really, really smart on water, but they know one little section of it.

Chuck Warren: Right.

**Congressman David Schweikert: **And so we’ve been doing on a personal basis, I’ve been doing meetings with everything from Salt River Project to CAP to the professors. If you’re to run for governor, it really annoys me, whether it be my opponent or the incumbent. When you get these trite answers to complex problems, turns out complex problems often require complex solutions.

Doesn’t mean they’re unattainable. You just have to be willing to sometimes do lots of things all at the same time to make it all work.

Listen to the full episode of Breaking Battlegrounds anywhere you stream your podcasts!