Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatke said state law is asking whether new developments in Arizona’s urban areas will guarantee sufficient water supplies to support 100 years of projected housing growth. I am of the opinion that a decision must be made.

His comments came shortly after new Governor Katie Hobbs released the ADWR report on Monday, which was previously classified as a groundwater basin under the Buckeye west of Phoenix. represents 4.4 million acre feet below the water requirement for the subdivision. Already approved for construction — for the next 100 years.

This is the equivalent of the Colorado River water that the Central Arizona Project’s canal system will supply to Tucson and Phoenix for four years.

The release of this report comes nearly two years after ADWR made a similar water supply decision for Pinal County, effectively blocking many new housing developments in a previously rapidly growing area. increase.

Buschatke said new groundwater-dependent housing developments in other rapidly growing urban areas, including Pima County, could face similar legal obstacles to subdivision under state law in the coming years. We anticipate that there will be, or will be faced

At the same time that Hobbes released the Buckeye report, she made a second move that could have far-reaching implications in the long run. She ordered the creation of a new Water Policy Council representing nearly every major water rights group in the state. This council will seek to find a way to update the pioneering Arizona Groundwater Management Act of 1980. Urban aquifers, including Tucson and Phoenix.

However, longtime homebuilder lobbyist Spencer Kumps pointed out that these restrictions on housing construction do not stop development, nor do they fully protect aquifers in such areas. This is because the state’s requirement to ensure a water supply only applies to new lots and not apartments, commercial developments or industries. Mr. Kumps is Vice President of the Home Builders Association based in Phoenix, Central Arizona.

Under the Arizona Groundwater Management Act of 1980, all new home subdivisions built in Arizona’s three most populous counties (Maricopa, Pinal, and Pima) are guaranteed a 100-year supply of water. You must prove that Both that there is sufficient groundwater under the parcel and that the water bodies of the three counties can find sufficient renewable water sources to replenish the parcel or another aquifer to supplement the parcel pumping. I have to prove it.

“The issue of guaranteed water supply first surfaced in Pinal County and is now a problem in the West Valley of the Phoenix metropolitan area,” Busschacke said in an interview this week. . “Sooner or later, the sun will set everywhere.

“Groundwater is finite and we have spent more than 40 years allocating it to new developments in the state-run water management areas that surround cities throughout the state,” said Bussacke. Includes the Tucson Active Management Area in Southern Pinal County, and similar areas in Santa Cruz County and surrounding Phoenix and Prescott.

For his office, he’s not ready to say where the next urban area will prove to lack enough water for 100 years of new housing growth. Pima County, where much of the unincorporated area depends on groundwater, could be where this happens next, but “I don’t want to say it will be the next area,” Buschatzke said.

“It has to happen,” he said, that other areas will be found lacking sufficient groundwater for new growth. “We are working to update the groundwater models that we have for our actively managed areas. You’ll start to see where exactly it starts to unfold.”

In the Tucson area, the Green Valley and surrounding communities in southern Pima County, the unincorporated areas north of Tucson to Saddlebrook in Pinal County, and the unincorporated areas southeast of Tucson are mostly, if not exclusively It depends exclusively on groundwater.

According to a federal study released in 2021, increased water demand and projected future reductions in CAP water supplies will increase the number of unincorporated Southern and Southeastern suburbs, and Regardless, both incorporated and unincorporated areas of the northern and northwestern suburbs, such as Oro, were found to experience a significant drop in groundwater levels. Valley, Catalina, Saddlebrook.

Of Buckeye, Buschatzke said ADWR officials have used a computer-based survey that indicates “there is not enough groundwater to build all the houses that may be in the pipeline or planned” around the area. He said he was “very confident” in the results of the groundwater model. Lower Hassayampa Basin, which stores groundwater.

“If we build these houses, we may need to introduce other types of water supply to the area,” he said.

Only developments that already have state-approved water supply guarantees in the area can go ahead.

Unless other sources of water can be found, the state action will effectively put the brakes on new subdivisions in Buckeye City, whose population is projected to grow from about 123,000 to about 872,000 in 2022. That is, according to Buckeye’s Water Master Plan, released in April 2020, if 27 master-planned communities approved by the city are finally built.

Asked for comment, Buckeye City spokeswoman Annie DeChance said on Tuesday that city officials are reviewing the nearly 300-page findings of the just-released state report for later action. Stated.

“We need time to analyze the data.; We will be able to respond and provide information,” said DeChance.

However, she stressed that all Buckeye homes and businesses have already been developed and those “under construction” have been shown to have a 100-year guaranteed water supply. For the period after that, “we are looking at alternative water sources other than groundwater,” says DeChance. She declined to give details.

In addition to creating the Water Policy Council, Hobbes attached a third mandate to Monday’s mandate for the release of the Buckeye study. She also created the Governor’s Office of Resilience, which aims to create “water, energy and land-use solutions,” she said in a news release. It will coordinate activities among a wide range of stakeholders, including external organizations, to “address Arizona’s water problems from the local, state, regional, and national levels,” Hobbes said.

The Water Policy Council will update groundwater management tools to protect groundwater, which makes up 41% of the state’s water supply, Hobbs said.

“The critical need for these updates is the need to close groundwater poaching loopholes. There is a lack of support for ,” she said.

More specifically, Hobbes said, “a Saudi conglomerate today pumps up largely uncontrolled local groundwater in La Paz county to grow water-intensive crops and distribute them to the other side of the world.” She cited news recently published that Saudi Arabian company Fondmonte will lease an acre of nearly 10,000 acres of state land owned by the state of Arizona to grow alfalfa. It referred to reports from the Republic of Arizona that they were paying $25 per person.

Hobbs also released a preview of its proposed administrative budget for fiscal year 2023-24, specifically provisions to allocate funds to help rural communities balance water use with aquifer recharge. . In a state address Monday, Hobbes told lawmakers that he had “reached out across the aisles for decades to find practical solutions to a drought that is unparalleled in modern times.” He urged them to follow in the footsteps of Arizona’s leaders.