Jeff Kronenfeld / NewsBreak Pinal County, Arizona

(Maricopa, Arizona) Farmers in Pinal County are struggling to cope with the recently extended Colorado River outage, while others in the region are responding more slowly to the historic drought.

In the city of Maricopa, PHX Surf is building a water park with lazy rivers, water slides and twin surf lagoons covering 274,000 square feet.

The site also includes an entertainment venue, spa, hotel, retail space, bicycle pump track and three restaurants. According to his PHX Surf entitlement package from May, the project will become a “stay and play” destination that attracts visitors from across the state, across the country and further afield.

The property is located in the Maricopa growing area and has public infrastructure such as water and sewerage.

PHX Surf did not respond to a request for comment regarding the park’s water use and procurement.

Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy, said a company called Global Water Resources (GWR) is likely to supply groundwater to PHX Surf, like the rest of the city.

The GWR will pump water from the Maricopa Stanfield Subbasin Aquifer, avoiding the direct impact of cuts to the waters of the Colorado River.

“Global is using far less groundwater than the Water Resources Authority allows us to use,” Porter said.

This water supply has allowed Maricopa to flourish since the city was incorporated in 2003.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the desert population has grown from 1,040 in 2000 to 62,720 in July 2021. Much of that increase is due to the conversion of agricultural land to residential land, which uses significantly less water per acre, Porter notes.

But just because a water supply is legally safe doesn’t mean it will never run out. In fact, the Pinal Active Management Area (AMA) plans to deplete the aquifer over the next few decades.

“The Department of Water Resources created a groundwater model for the Pinal AMA a few years ago and concluded that if all projected demand for the next 100 years were to occur, the county would be severely short,” Porter said. “Probably not all projected demand will happen, as was pointed out in 2019 or 2020. Probably many ags will go away. Water use will continue to be more efficient. But there is no good news for Pinal County among all active management areas right now.”

A rendering of the PHX Surf Water Park in Maricopa City.(PHX Surf/AO)

PHX Surf Water Park might be a day at the beach for Maricopa residents, but the project is a cleansing for fifth-generation Arizona farmer Jace Miller.

“It’s a bit clunky and off-timing, to say the least,” Miller said. “There is a problem not only with water park construction, but also with unregulated growth. It is not sustainable. It is not intelligent. It is not smart.”

Miller and his family run Triple M Farms, with acreage primarily in Pinal County, including leases in Eloy. They also provide agricultural services and custom harvesting to farmers in the Gila River Indian community and elsewhere. In addition, there is still a small piece of land in Maricopa County, where Miller’s great-great-grandfather began farming in Arizona in 1919.

Triple M grows alfalfa, Bermuda grass, sedan grass, oats, cotton, and small amounts of wheat and barley. Most of their crops are used for diaries and horse riding, and some are shipped domestically and sometimes internationally.

Miller worries that growing urban areas will eventually soak up so much water that his son will miss out on the opportunity to continue the family tradition of farming.

“We are in an area that can sustain so many people and so much water use, but we had this false sense of security. Continuing with the premise, every farmer in the world would say, “Scrap this, sell your land under development to make more money.

Porter acknowledged the bad view of building water parks when nearby farms were facing cutbacks in water supplies, but noted that farmers were also pumping groundwater. He noted that the agricultural industry has been actively lobbying against the groundwater user preference scheme.

Porter also pointed out that cities are more capable of conserving water during the dry season. However, she did not endorse or endorse any particular water use, instead focusing on the need for entire communities to move to more sustainable practices.

“In some ways, the changes that we are facing are prioritizing water use in cities,” Porter said. I’m no ignorant about water supply or sustainable management, but I’m not sure if it’s obvious that alfalfa fields are more important than water parks.

Image showing areas of Pinal County affected by land subsidence.(Kyl Water Policy Center – ASU’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy)

If too much groundwater is pumped up too quickly, parts of the aquifer can collapse, reducing its ability to hold water in a phenomenon called land subsidence. The Arizona Department of Water Resources has found that much of Pinal County, including parts of the city of Maricopa, is experiencing land subsidence.