Arizona lawmakers advance bill to set up regulation of rural groundwater

On a party-line vote, an Arizona Senate Committee approved a bill Wednesday to establish a rural groundwater management setup that’s favored by many farming interest groups but opposed by many environmentalists and some rural community leaders.

The bill, introduced by Buckeye Republican Sen. Sine Kerr, would establish a complex legal and governmental process to designate groundwater basin management areas with the goal of reducing groundwater depletion while maintaining the area’s economy and agricultural base. The Republican-led Senate Natural Resources, Energy and Water Committee voted 4-3 to support the measure.

It would allow some mandatory conservation measures while still protecting existing farmers’ groundwater rights, as certified by the Arizona Department of Water Resources. It would also appropriate $40 million to ADWR to pay for unspecified measures for farmers to achieve better water conservation.

An amendment approved unanimously by the committee made a concession to bill opponents, who had sharply criticized the measure’s original requirement that a groundwater basin be found to have an “accelerated” water level decline of at least 10 feet a year over 5 years before it could be considered for basin management.

That would have ruled out including any of Arizona’s groundwater basins from facing state regulation by becoming a basin management area, ADWR records show.

Instead, the amendment allows designation of a groundwater basin management area if a water table falls at least 50 feet over 20 years. Using that standard, the Willcox Basin, where numerous wells have dried up due to agricultural over-pumping, would qualify. So would the Gila Bend Basin, which ADWR just started considering as a possible state-run Active Management Area, which has far stricter rules than the groundwater basin areas this bill would create.

ADWR-monitored “index wells” showed average water level declines of 89 feet in the Gila Bend Basin and 73 feet in the Willcox Basin from 2000 through 2020, agency records show.

Testifying in support, Arizona Farm Bureau President Stefanie Smallhouse said, “For the first time ever, agriculture comes to the table with a solution which is in fact regulatory. It does look different than other previous proposals. It actually takes into consideration the sustainable future of agriculture.

“This bill has been in process several years and required considerable collaboration of the agricultural community,” said Smallhouse, whose family farms in the San Pedro River Valley east of Tucson. “If you are going to make a giant shift in managing natural resources, it has to be deliberative, collaborative and create trust.”

But opponents lashed out at provisions requiring a many-step process for creating such areas. First, 15% of registered voters within a basin would have to petition to create one. Then, the affected county’s board of supervisors would have to recommend it and then, voters within the proposed basin would have to approve its creation.

“It’s time to adopt a new rural groundwater management framework that works for everybody, not just the farm bureau but all rural Arizonans,” said Travis Lingenfelter, a Mohave County supervisor. “The (basin management areas) contained in the bill, not only will it not help rural counties and cities, it will make it worse.”

Lingenfelter said he was speaking on behalf of Coconino, La Paz and Yavapai counties and several cities within them as well as his own. They’ve formed a coalition to “advocate for common sense in a rural groundwater management framework,” he said.

A competing bill has been introduced in the House by Democrats in the minority party. It would also allow formation of rural groundwater management areas but they would be easier to create and would have more regulatory authority.

Under the Democrats’ bill, the governor would appoint such areas’ seven-member governing councils. Members would have to be recommended by legislative leaders of both parties and six members would have to live within the groundwater management area.

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Kerr’s bill would have three council members elected by area residents and two chosen by irrigation districts in the area.

Tucson Democratic Sen. Priya Sundareshan said the existence of the competing bills “shows we all agree that we need a management approach … that is locally driven, flexible and allows for conservation and other approaches not currently allowed under AMAs. It sounds like we all agree that AMAs are not necessarily the best approach for rural areas.”

“I know the frustration the people are feeling” about the Gila Bend Basin in particular, she said, and the declining wells there show that “we need a new approach.”

“What we hopefully are trying to get to, we have different approaches on how that should be done, is how to marry the approach,” Sundareshan said.

Kerr noted that the GOP bill will be heard next Tuesday by the Senate Appropriations Committee, where it can get more discussion. She said “my door is open” and “I’m happy to talk to everyone” with suggestions for improving the bill.

“Sen. Sundareshan and I have a commitment to sit down and put the bills together,” she said. “I’m willing to reach out to everyone at the table. It’s more important when we disagree that we come together and have that understanding.”

Donna Michaels, the Yavapai County supervisors’ vice chair, said, “I’m concerned (the bill) will hurt Yavapai County, and that’s my home. It has water challenges.

"We’ve already lost 5 miles of the Verde River," which flows through much of Yavapai County, she testified. “The flows since 1990 in the Upper Verde are down 34%, and in the Lower Verde, they’re down 41%."

Michaels said provisions in Kerr's bill "are confusing and bureaucratic," adding, "I believe the effects of these steps required, like petitions, elections, multiple unanimous votes and the involvement of the Legislature” will hamper the management areas’ effectiveness.

Gila Bend Mayor Tommy Sykes and Councilman Chris Riggs both spoke in favor of Kerr’s bill.

Kerr traveled to Gila Bend to share the bill’s contents with local residents, whereas the Gila Bend town manager only found out about the possible designation of the Gila Bend Basin as an AMA “after it was posted on the ADWR website,” Sykes said. “It was insulting that the state failed to reach out to the town of Gila Bend, whereas Sen. Kerr made an effort to inform us.”

Riggs said, “We demand control of our basin. We agree we need to be active keepers of our community basin. But control must remain in hands of our people that have a dog in that fight. We absolutely do not trust the governor. We trust Sen. Kerr.”