A field survey team from the Arizona Department of Water Resources recently completed a two-month “basin sweep” in the state’s northwest, focused on assessing groundwater levels in the Northwest Basin planning area surrounding the city of Kingman.

The area includes the Hualapai Basin, and ADWR Director Tom Buschatke plans to make the basin non-irrigated in December 2022, after several months of requests for INA designation from the oversight board and Mojave County residents. Designated as an extended area (INA). INA prohibits landlords from building irrigation systems on previously unirrigated land.

Various agricultural groups, such as the Arizona Agricultural Service Coalition, and individual farm owners opposed the INA designation, arguing that there was a lack of evidence to support the decision. In January, a Tucson-based law firm representing two out-of-state limited liability companies reportedly filed a notice of appeal against the designation in the Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix. havasu news.

ADWR Chief Hydrologist Ryan Mitchell said, “With INA, you can pump water, you can irrigate your grandfather’s right, but you can’t expand your acreage.”

Ryan Mitchell

However, the properties of INA do not necessarily lead to water savings. Different types of crops require different amounts of water, says Mitchell, and as time goes on and crops get older, they often need more water.

“Since this small tree doesn’t use as much water as a 10-year-old tree, water usage is likely to fluctuate even though the irrigated area stays the same, and if the tree grows and needs will probably increase.” Add more water,” Mitchell said. “But[INA]helps put the brakes on and slow everyone down.”

“If[farmers]stay within their irrigated acres, they don’t grow. They meet the INA rules, but they will still be pumping more water,” Mitchell said.

ADWR conducts watershed cleanup according to 5-year and 10-year planning plans, prioritizing INAs, Active Management Areas (AMAs), and other critical locations. Field researchers collect water data that help demonstrate trends in hydrology. It primarily shows how water is distributed underground and how water levels have changed over time.

According to Terry Davis, field service section manager for ADWR’s Department of Hydrology, state water authorities obtained these data from the U.S. Geological Survey, which was responsible for recording all water data prior to the founding of ADWR in 1980. He took over responsibility for hydrological monitoring.

ADWR assigns field workers who are not working in a specific area during a watershed cleanup to survey a specific area within the state. With a large number of researchers concentrating their research on one of her areas, ADWR is able to collect large amounts of data quickly.

“Instead of getting one or two readings in the basin each year, you end up with 30 to 40 readings in about a week,” says Mitchell. “We use that data in our models, we also use that data in groundwater trends, and everything that is collected ends up in his GWSI (Arizona Groundwater Site Inventory).”

A typical basin cleanup takes 4-6 weeks. However, according to Davis, ADWR often faces delays in the data collection process for a myriad of reasons related to well access.

Davis said there are two different active well databases, except that well owners move and wells sometimes collapse. One is the statutory ADWR registry, Wells 55, and the other is the Arizona Groundwater Site Inventory, which labels wells differently with coordinates confirmed by field visits.

“It’s very difficult to spend a lot of time matching wells between Wells 55 and GWSI to see which well you’re in,” said Davis, adding that the He explained that a standardized system would improve efficiency. Groundwater level monitoring.

To remedy this slow process, ADWR will send researchers to conduct site inventory surveys prior to planned basin clean-ups, allowing ADWR to confirm well locations and construction methods.

“AMAs and INAs typically have more site inventory,” says Davis. “The more familiar you are with the area, the faster you can travel.”

Davis says that ADWR’s data collection process is meticulous, “from planning for watershed cleaning, to getting equipment organized and calibrated to standards, to making sure trucks are in good working order.” It was a kind of “clockwork” planned by “

The ADWR Hydrology Department typically takes two to three weeks to complete quality assurance checks and enter data into GWSI. GWSI is an interactive multi-level map on the ADWR website that allows users to locate watersheds, sub-basins and groundwater wells. statewide.

It will take another two to three months for the ADWR Department of Hydrology to compile a report outlining the results of the data collection. However, clearing results for the Northwest Basin region may demonstrate the impact of the Hualapai Basin INA designation because of the higher rates at which water moves through subsurface basins and aquifers, and dirt and sentiment create resistance to flowing water. is said to be low. to Mitchell. The effect of INA designation is longer term.