California is a more populous state and richer than Arizona, so they built a lot of canals and aqueducts early.
The Phoenix area for years relied on the water of the Salt River, which is fed by snow run-off from the northeastern side of the state. Several reservoirs were created quite early with dams along the Salt River.
Finally, in 1973, the Central Arizona Project Aqueduct was started to bring water from the Colorado River to Phoenix, and all the way down south to Tucson. This 336-mile aqueduct took much longer to build than Californian aqueducts. I guess AZ is a poorer state.
The CAP Aqueduct needed 14 lifting pump stations, with a total lift of 2,900 ft. The pumps burn a total of 2.5 million MWh per year.
The CAP was being built while I was attending ASU (Arizona State University) in Tempe. I remember the student body often organized demonstration against the CAP construction. I was too busy with my study and was never that political to bother to find out what aspects of the project that the students were protesting about.