9. The Project Central Arizona
Where: Tucson, Arizona
Completed Cost: $4 billion * Completed Year: 1993
Five million people, or more than 80% of Arizona’s total population, are served by the Central Arizona Project, or CAP. The CAP system, spanning 336 miles, provides water to residents of Pima, Pinal, and Maricopa counties. With an ultimate construction cost of $4 billion for this aqueduct, CAP was incredibly costly.
Project Central Arizona, ©Shutterstock/Tim Roberts Photography
The right to use CAP, which has an annual capacity of 456 billion gallons of water, is paid for by expenditures made by cities. The project is financed in this manner. The Colorado River water supply is used to supply capital charges to towns that have contracts to utilize it, which helps defray the government’s debt for constructing and operating CAP.
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