Shane M. Leonard: Pursuing Efficiency in an Urbanizing Irrigation District
The Legacy Park at RWCD headquarters.
Shane Leonard: I am the general manager of RWCD, which is located in eastern Maricopa County in the great state of Arizona. I am the fourth generation of my family working at the district. I received my bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University’s Morrison School of Agribusiness and Resource Management, majoring in finance and minoring in finite resource management. RWCD is approximately 40,000 acres in size, 10,000 acres of which is still irrigated, either in large-scale agricultural production or in municipal, industrial, and smaller-acreage backyard subdivisions. We currently have 52 employees. We produce approximately 60,000 acre-feet of water per year for delivery, made up primarily of renewable supplies. We recently moved into a brand-new facility, the first that we have built in 100 years. Irrigation Leader: How has the district made its water distribution system more efficient, and what kind of infrastructure programs have been involved?
A box culvert being built under a freeway offramp.
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Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about yourself and about RWCD.
6 | IRRIGATION LEADER | November/December 2020
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PHOTOS COURTESY OF RWCD .
he Roosevelt Water Conservation District (RWCD) has been serving local farmers, urban irrigators, and other central Arizona water users for more than a century. Located on the eastern edge of the Phoenix metro area in Maricopa County, its 40,000‑acre service area overlaps with the quickly growing cities of Mesa and Chandler and the town of Gilbert, meaning that it is acquiring many new customers and quickly becoming a largely urbanized district. In this interview, RWCD General Manager Shane M. Leonard tells Irrigation Leader about how his district pursues efficiency via infrastructure upgrades, staff training, and relationship building.
Shane Leonard: Several things fall under the heading of efficiencies, in my opinion. First, there is infrastructure—in our case, large open conveyances; canals; and smaller delivery systems, such as laterals and pipeline. RWCD was one of the first fully lined concrete systems designed for irrigation in the western United States. And while it is evident that a fully lined system loses less water than an unlined one, our system was designed to be completely gravity fed, such that it does not require us to introduce any more water into the system than is absolutely necessary to fulfill our deliveries. In short, we don’t have to add extra water just to push the water through the system. The next step in improving our infrastructure’s efficiency is completing the transition from above-ground delivery channels to underground rubber-gasketed reinforced concrete pipe. Based on our current capital budget and urbanization rates, I expect that will be completed in the next 5–10 years. The second aspect of efficiency concerns the operation of the system—in essence, RWCD staff and their utilization of the system for delivery. You can have the world’s most efficient system in place, but if the people operating it are ill trained or are constantly leaving and being replaced, then it doesn’t matter. Over the last 10 years, one of the district’s primary focuses has been
