(The Center Square) – Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs appointed Ed Curry to the Water Policy Council on Thursday following recent departures from the group.
Curry is a farmer and president of Curry Seed and Chile Company in southern Arizona, which has helped pave the way for chile farming in the United States.
“Ed Curry has demonstrated a lifetime of achievement in agriculture and I am pleased to have him join the work of the Water Policy Council,” Hobbs said in a statement Thursday. “His expertise will be a valuable addition to the Council as it seeks to develop solutions that provide water security for all of Arizona.”
Curry said that he’s looking forward to sharing a rural Arizonan perspective on the council.
“I am honored at the opportunity to serve on the Governor’s Water Policy Council and ready to contribute to the process,” he said in a statement. “I have dedicated my life to farming here in Arizona, and know the importance of water conservation and management. By working together we have an opportunity to ensure that our great-grandchildren will have the chance to live and farm in rural Arizona.”
Senate Republicans, as well as the Arizona Farm Bureau, left the council last month, saying that it was aimed at working toward predetermined legislative recommendations on rural groundwater usage.
“After months of deliberation, the committee’s direction, and thereby the outcome of the greater Council, appears to be pre-determined as essentially a cross between the seriously flawed attempts of the past and an AMA,” bureau president Stefanie Smallhouse said in a statement on Oct. 13.
“At best, our priorities have been given very little committee consideration or, at worst, have been totally dismissed. This is unacceptable to our members, farm and ranch families who will undoubtedly be impacted directly and immediately by any rural groundwater regulatory framework,” she continued.
The Center Square reported that the governor is not concerned about any more exits from the council, including state Rep. Gail Griffin, R-Hereford, who has been a critic of the proposals brought forth by the Hobbs administration.
The farm bureau profiled the spice mogul in 2018, but he does not appear to have any notable political ties that are public.
According to Arizona’s political donation database, Curry only made a single $50 contribution to a campaign against Proposition 204 in 2006. The proposition called the “Humane Treatment of Farm Animals Act” was passed by voters overwhelmingly, and it was on whether to make is a class one misdemeanor for not providing calves and pigs space to lie down, fully extend their libs, and turn around “freely.”
