its sale to approximately 240,000 consumers. See Salt River Project, 1979-1980 Annual Report, p. 25. The District is now the second largest utility in Arizona. Furthermore, as of April 30, 1980, the District had outstanding long-term debt of slightly over $2 billion. Approximately $1.78 billion, or about 88%, of that debt are in the form of revenue bonds secured solely by the revenues from the District's electrical operations. All of the District's capital improvements since 1972 have been financed by revenue bonds, and the general obligation bonds, now representing a small fraction of the District's long-term debt, are being steadily retired from the District's general revenues. It must also be noted that at the present time, 40% of the water delivered by the District is used for nonagriculturalpublic agency has any right to control. Unlike the situation in Salyer, the financial burden of supplying irrigation water has been shifted from the landowners to the consumers of electricity.[6] At the very least, the structure of the District's indebtedness together with the history of the District's operations compels a finding that the burdens placed upon the lands within the District are so minimal that they cannot possibly serve as a basis for limiting the franchise to property owners.
Like the Court of Appeals, I cannot help but conclude as follows:
"[T]he operation of the utility has taken on independent significance. In view of the magnitude of the electric utility operations and the large percentage of the water services which are used and paid for in a manner unrelated to