Ed Gerak of the Irrigation and Electrical Districts Association: Advocating for Arizona’s Power and Water degree from the University of Michigan. All the water in Michigan came in the form of rain and snow, and one day the temperature got down to minus 56 degrees with the wind chill. That was the day I decided to move west. I had family in Phoenix, so I visited them in 1995. It was March, 80 degrees, and construction was booming. I found a job with a concrete company and eventually got relocated to Sacramento. But after a year, I moved back to Phoenix and landed a job at an irrigation district. After 10 years there, I moved to the Arizona Power Authority. I was there for 4½ years and recently joined IEDA. Irrigation Leader: Tell us about IEDA. Ed Gerak: IEDA has been around for nearly 60 years. When it started, its primary purpose was to advocate on behalf of special districts regarding federal hydropower issues. Today, we still work on power-related issues, but we also cover water availability and delivery, water quality, and administrative law subjects, working both at the state and federal levels. We have 25 members, all of which are public power entities, including irrigation districts, electrical districts, cities and towns, cooperatives, and a few specialpurpose entities. Irrigation Leader: Does that mean that the irrigation districts also provide power?
The Central Arizona Project Canal.
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Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position. Ed Gerak: I grew up in a rural part of southeastern Michigan. My dad was an electrician, and I was interested in construction, so I ended up getting a civil engineering
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Irrigation Leader: Are some of your members also power generators? Where do the electricity retailers get their power from? Ed Gerak: The only members that generate their own power are the Salt River Project and the Arizona Generation and Transmission Cooperative. The others have federal hydropower allocations from Hoover Dam, the Colorado River Storage Project, or the Parker-Davis Project. Most IEDA members are part of the Southwest Public Power Association (SPPA), which is a joint action agency that has acquired purchase power agreements on their behalf. Irrigation Leader: What are the top issues for IEDA and its member organizations today? irrigationleadermagazine.com
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BUREAU OF RECLAMATION.
he Colorado basin has suffered from drought for two decades, and recent cuts to water allocation under the Drought Contingency Plan (DCP) will not just hurt Arizona farmers but cause steep increases in the cost of power generation. That’s just one of many issues of concern for the Irrigation and Electrical Districts Association (IEDA), a statewide association that advocates on behalf of Arizona’s public power and water providers. In this interview, IEDA Executive Director Ed Gerak talks about the current challenges facing its members.
Ed Gerak: Correct. Both irrigation and electrical districts can sell power within their districts. In fact, a lot of the electrical districts were started to provide energy or power to wells to pump irrigation water.
