This was the legislative session that wasn’t on water.

Oh, everyone talked a good game. Gov. Katie Hobbs kicked off the session warning lawmakers that if they didn’t act on water, she would.

Lawmakers introduced hundreds of bills on the subject — more than anyone can remember in recent history.

Some would have upended statewide water policy. A handful could have upended it for the better.

But in the end … nothing.

A long, draining session ended with no additional money going to the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority — the agency tasked with finding more water for Arizona — as lawmakers had promised in 2022.

A few small-scale water bills passed the House and Senate and managed to evade the governor’s veto.

But not the big ones — namely, an effort to create some form of rural groundwater management that began early on, died and was resurrected at the last minute, and a second to address multiple urban groundwater issues that coalesced late in the session but quickly fell apart under its own weight.

Both bills had issues. But ones that could have been worked out — if we........

© Arizona Republic