Growing Returns

Selected tag(s): Arizona

A conservation win and groundwater loss: Arizona ends 2022 session with mixed water record

The Verde River, one of the last free-flowing rivers in the Southwest, remains unprotected after another year of in action to address rural groundwater pumping in Arizona.

After months of negotiations, the Arizona Legislature passed a major water spending plan last month with funding for new conservation efforts to address deteriorating water supplies. However, for the fourth year in a row, state leaders failed to pass legislation to address unlimited groundwater pumping, missing an opportunity to enable a water secure future for 1.5 million rural residents and the state as a whole.

Read More »

Posted in Climate Resilience / Also tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments are closed

Arizonans have spoken: It’s time to protect rural groundwater.

Across roughly 80% of Arizona, there are virtually no groundwater regulations, meaning that anyone can drill a well and pump groundwater, even if it dries up neighboring drinking wells or depletes flows in nearby rivers and streams. It’s the land of “the deepest well wins,” putting livelihoods, communities, agriculture and ecosystems at risk.

To help address this risk, state Rep. Regina Cobb introduced legislation two years in a row that would safeguard critical groundwater supplies by providing at-risk groundwater basins or subbasins in rural Arizona the opportunity to opt in to Rural Management Areas (RMAs). Doing so would trigger the creation of a local advisory board that can leverage a suite of tools to develop a groundwater management plan that considers local needs and context.

Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized / Also tagged , , , , , | Comments are closed

Climate change is destabilizing the Colorado River Basin. Where do we go from here?

In June, a portion of my neighborhood in Flagstaff, Arizona, was put on pre-evacuation notice due to a nearby wildfire. A few weeks later, storms dumped heavy rains over a burn scar from a 2019 fire that caused destructive floods through parts of town. So far, this summer has been our third-wettest monsoon season on record, a complete contrast from our two driest monsoon seasons on record in 2019 and 2020.

These extremes are just a few local examples of the havoc that climate change is causing around the world. Here in the West, we are now in uncharted territory with the first-ever shortage declaration on the Colorado River.

Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized / Also tagged , , , , , , , | Comments are closed

How to advance water security for Arizona? These 3 bills are a good start.

With dozens of water bills introduced in the Arizona Legislature this session, EDF Action and the Water for Arizona Coalition are focusing on long-overdue steps needed to ensure water security for all, especially rural communities that face high water risk.

Rural Arizona is the only substantial region left across the seven Colorado River Basin states where an “open access” approach to groundwater management is still the norm. This anything-goes approach puts people and ecosystems in rural Arizona at a disproportionate risk of water insecurity and economic instability. Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized / Also tagged , , , , , , , | Comments are closed

Climate leadership is water leadership. This Arizona bill is neither.

Climate change is already having sweeping impacts across Arizona — from devastating wildfires to increases in heat-related illnesses and deaths to declines in safe and reliable water supplies. Unless global carbon emissions are reduced to net zero in the coming decades, these impacts will only multiply and increase in severity across the Southwest.

We must embrace all available tools to reduce carbon emissions to help stave off worsening climate change, which is why we oppose HB 2248, a bill that would undermine progress on Arizona’s proposed clean energy rules. Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized / Also tagged , , , , , , , | Comments are closed

Top 3 water priorities in the 2021 Arizona legislative session

Despite uncertainty about the Legislature’s operations amid the COVID surge, Arizona’s 2021 legislative session opened last week with the expectation that several bills will be introduced to advance water security and support a healthy environment.

State policies that promote water security for all people and ecosystems remain as important as ever as communities confront public health challenges, look to rebuild economies and face what is shaping up to be yet another record-shattering dry winter across the Southwest. Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized / Also tagged , , , , | Comments are closed

3 simple steps to help protect Arizona’s at-risk rivers and lakes

Arizona’s rivers, creeks and lakes provide valuable drinking water, critical habitat for wildlife, and serene spaces for people to enjoy with their families and friends. However, many of these ecologically important waterways are now at risk of pollution and even destruction as a result of recent rollbacks of federal protections. Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized / Also tagged , , , | Comments are closed

Rural Arizonans need these tools to manage declining groundwater resources, fast

In some parts of rural Arizona, groundwater is the primary or only source of water for households, farmers and entire communities. But groundwater pumping has caused wells, rivers and springs to go dry.

A study by Arizona’s Department of Water Resources found that areas of Mohave County, which includes Kingman, may have only 60 years of groundwater remaining under certain pumping scenarios. Last month, the U.S. Geological Survey presented a new study showing areas of Mohave County could have over 100 years of groundwater supply.

The USGS study assumed that farmers will switch to less water-intensive crops and that new acreage won’t be converted to farmland. The difference in projections between these studies demonstrates that how we collectively manage and use groundwater matters, leading Mohave County Supervisor Gary Watson to conclude, “time is of the essence.” Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized / Also tagged , , , | Comments are closed

Arizona leaders must finish what was started on groundwater 40 years ago

Forty years ago, then Democratic Gov. Bruce Babbitt signed Arizona’s landmark Groundwater Management Act, which created a system to manage groundwater in five regions of the state where overpumping was most severe and aquifer levels were declining rapidly.

“I called the leaders of the water establishment together on the day after Thanksgiving in 1979,” Babbitt recalled in an oral history. “I personally sat them down and met with them once or twice a week for nine months and just kind of shut the door and said, ‘We’re going to reform our way out of this problem, and we’re going to draft a meaningful water management system for the state of Arizona.’” Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized / Also tagged , , , , | Comments are closed

This bill will protect scarce water supplies for rural Arizona, if the Legislature can pass it

Breakthrough reporting by the Arizona Republic widely exposed what is perhaps one of the state’s darkest water secrets: Groundwater pumping is essentially unregulated in nearly 80% of the state, putting the livelihoods and water supplies of up to 1.5 million residents at risk.

Groundwater is essential for life in the Southwest. It makes up about 40% of the water that Arizonans use each year. In many of the state’s rural areas, groundwater is the only available water supply.

Although Arizona regulates groundwater in and around Phoenix and Tucson, there are no limits on groundwater pumping in most of the state. As a result, more than a third of Arizona’s perennial rivers have been lost or altered; the city of Kingman’s main aquifer is projected to run out of water in 60 years or less; and residents in rural Arizona are already seeing their wells run dry.

Lack of oversight and transparency on groundwater pumping has left communities and rural citizens powerless to secure their water supplies.

Without action by the Arizona Legislature to address this crisis, rural communities will face ever-mounting groundwater challenges as populations grow, out-of-state mega farms move in and persistent drought continues. Fortunately, state leaders – both Republicans and Democrats – are now coming forward with legislation to tackle rural groundwater challenges. Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized / Also tagged , , , | Read 3 Responses