Arizona gov's panel urges big overhaul of rural groundwater rules

An advisory council to Arizona’s governor recommended a far-reaching measure Wednesday that could for the first time usher in regulation of rural groundwater pumping — if it can get through an expected legislative gauntlet.

The Governor’s Water Policy Council recommended legislation to create a system that would authorize setting up state-designated and locally run rural Groundwater Management Areas. Local residents, county supervisors or state officials could propose such areas and the Arizona Department of Water Resources director would have final authority.

The council also recommended stepping up the measuring of groundwater use in those areas, where no government metering or other monitoring of individuals’ water pumping now exists.

These measures would represent a huge change in management of pumping in rural areas. Groundwater use there has remained unregulated even as urban areas have come under increasing scrutiny and water conservation requirements as a result of the landmark 1980 Arizona Groundwater Management Act.

In urban areas, including the Tucson area, officials are legally required to bring their water pumping in line with groundwater recharge by 2025.

The council’s actions Wednesday wrap up a six-month effort, launched by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, to beef up management of rural groundwater pumping and to improve the state’s laws and rules requiring proof of an 100-year assured water supply for new subdivisions in urban areas including Tucson.

On that front, the council recommends a law change to require builders of “build to rent” housing to comply with the assured water supply law. Currently, all rental housing is exempt from that law.

The council also recommends — strictly for the Phoenix and Pinal County management areas — rule changes that would set up a new system for water providers to gain formal designations of an assured water supply that requires them to use more renewable supplies and to reduce groundwater pumping.

“Giant leaps forward”

In rural areas, the newly proposed Groundwater Management Areas would:

Have the authority to set long-term goals for an individual area’s aquifer stability.

Be required to create management plans for how groundwater should be used.

Be required to have a mandatory water conservation program “for all sectors” of an area’s local economy.

Be run by councils whose members would come from “lists of recommended individuals submitted by federally recognized Indian tribes, cities, towns, counties, water providers, and state legislators within the area boundaries.” Exactly who would appoint the council members remains unsettled.

Be required to regulate new well locations.

Be required to describe “the appropriate physical and socioeconomic conditions in the area and how the goals relate to those conditions.”

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Be required to prescribe methods to monitor and report on the areas’ progress toward meeting their goals.

“These are giant leaps forward for water policy and water management in the state,” Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke told the Star Wednesday, speaking of the entire package of measures recommended this year by the council.

“Just the fact in a six-month time frame we had pretty diverse interests come together, knowing that there’s still more work to be done … even now, that’s a pretty good step forward, to come to closure and get support where we needed it both legislatively and for rulemaking,” Buschatzke said. “These are very big ticket items and very necessary.”

He added that state water officials and council members agreed at the meetings that “the time is right to take some big policy steps forward in these two areas.”

Key lawmaker’s opposition

For years, environmentalists, some rural activists outside the environmental movement and even some Republican county supervisors and legislators have said some reining in of the unregulated rural pumping is needed to prevent aquifer levels in those areas from sinking to the point where they can no longer supply water to farmers or other residents.

These efforts have died again and again in the Legislature due to opposition from legislative leaders and committee chairs who oppose any such regulation as infringements on private property rights. The most outspoken legislative opponent of state regulation of rural areas, Republican Rep. Gail Griffin of Hereford, has repeatedly blocked such legislation and many times refused to hold hearings on it as chairwoman of the House Energy, Natural Resources and Water Committee.

Griffin serves on this water policy council but didn’t attend Wednesday’s meeting. An aide to her read a statement at the meeting opposing some of the policy changes being proposed. Griffin was the only water policy council member who opposed the proposals for toughening rural groundwater regulation.

Two other committee members, Arizona Farm Bureau President Stefanie Smallhouse and Sen. Sine Kerr, resigned from the council last month in protest of what they felt was overreaching by the committee in its plans to set up the rural management areas. Their resignations signal the potential for these proposals to face tough legislative sledding next year.

Kerr, a Buckeye Republican, said at the time in a statement, “The Governor’s Water Policy Council is nothing more than a forum to rubber stamp the progressive environmental goals of special interest groups. The radical agenda being pushed has the potential to damage our economy and kill the livelihoods of our farmers and ranchers.”

Today, nearly 24,000 wells are pumping potentially large amounts of groundwater in unregulated areas of Arizona, ADWR told the governor’s council. They pump more than 35 gallons per minute of groundwater.

Money for well owners

On monitoring of water use, the council recommendation calls on ADWR to provide financial assistance to owners of such wells in these unregulated areas. In return, the well owners would voluntarily report their annual water use to the state.

Speaking of the rural groundwater areas proposal, Buschatzke said, “Let me say that in this council process, there are some people who thought this framework went too far and some thought it didn’t go far enough.

“After we work on creating the details of this framework including a legislative package, we have the opportunity to put more on the bones to address the detail. I expect we will build a broad level of support we can bring forward to multiple legislators, hopefully in a bipartisan way,” the director said.