Arizona opinion: Rural groundwater protection steps needed

The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:

Re: the Aug. 7 article “Proposed rural groundwater-control laws are bad.”

Groundwater protection for rural Arizona is a critical issue that deserves honest debate and consideration by our Legislature and yet serious proposals to address this issue have not even been given a hearing. To make matters worse, Representative Gail Griffin (R-District 19), a key legislator that has worked to block discussion on rural groundwater, has resorted to spreading misinformation to justify inaction.

Most of rural Arizona was excluded from groundwater protections established by the 1980 Groundwater Management Act (GMA). In the 40-plus years since, demands on our finite rural groundwater supplies have increased dramatically.

The consequences of these increasing demands on a finite resource include declining water levels — resulting in dried-up wells, land subsidence, earth fissures, property damage, and reduced water flow in ecologically important rivers and streams.

Local Groundwater Stewardship Area (LGSA) legislation was introduced in 2023 by the Republican Majority Leaders, Rep. Biasiucci (R-Kingman) and Sen. Borrelli (R-Lake Havasu City). An LGSA is a locally driven and flexible groundwater management process adaptable to the unique circumstances in rural groundwater basins. The concept was developed by dozens of rural community leaders, including several rural local elected officials, and incorporated considerable input from stakeholders and legislators. It has strong bipartisan support.

Rep. Griffin’s August 7 Op-Ed lists all her reasons for blocking rural groundwater management proposals, including the LGSA.

However, remarkably, none of the claims she makes about the LGSA proposal are true. It makes one wonder if she has even read the proposed legislation. A detailed policy rebuttal to her op-Ed can be found here. But we have bigger questions.

Rep. Griffin: Do us real rural Arizonans not count? What about our homes and businesses, what good are they without secure access to water?

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Let’s be honest: more and more communities across rural Arizona are being exploited by speculators and large groundwater pumpers moving in and taking as much water as they want. Everyday people like us and our neighbors are left high and dry.

Under the GMA we currently only have three choices — get a new Active Management Area (AMA), get a new Irrigation Non-Expansion Area (INA), or do nothing. Doing nothing is clearly not working for rural communities anymore.

We in rural Arizona have asked Rep. Griffin and the Legislature for years for more tools to manage our local groundwater supplies. Each year we are ignored. Rep. Griffin and her special interest lobbying allies block discussions on solutions then tell us that we have the tools we need. Yet when we seek to use these tools, such as pursuing new AMAs or INAs, they oppose those too. At the same time, they have provided no constructive solutions or alternatives for rural groundwater management. And so rural Arizonans are left disempowered, without any guarantee of water security.

In our rural areas neighbors are running out of water and many have had to deepen their wells, often at great expense. Some are having to move away because they no longer can access water. We live in rural Arizona because we are drawn to wide open spaces, and the promise of freedom and opportunity in this state.

But, without local groundwater protection and secure access to water for all communities in Arizona, there is no longer much of any freedom or opportunity here for residents, our local businesses, or our family farms.

If key legislators cannot get past attempting to poke holes in local groundwater protection proposals from us in rural Arizona, while spreading misinformation and offering no constructive ideas or solutions, then we must find another path.

That is why more rural communities like ours are asking Governor Hobbs to use her executive authorities to designate our basins as new AMAs or INAs. One way or another, we must manage the groundwater we have, the only water supply in much of rural Arizona. Our future depends on it.