Photo of contributed file: Arizona Water Advocate Chair Ashley Dahlke and Treasurer Rebecca Wills voted more than needed to set up an active management area for the Wilcox Groundwater Basin in the November ballot. I am preparing to submit a petition with the signatures of AWD was recently notified that more signatures than required were confirmed and will be put to a vote this November.

Contributed Article/Courtesy of Arizona Water Defenders

BISBEE – Arizona Water Defenders (AWD) confirms from Cochise County Elections Office that petition to place Willcox Basin Active Management Area (AMA) on November 8 ballot has sufficient signatures Did. The Elections Bureau submitted this information to the Cochise County Board of Supervisors during a work session on May 13.

Wilcox Basin voters in both Cochise and Graham counties, many of whom signed petitions and shared their concerns, created an AMA to manage the basin’s groundwater following the Cochise County Board of Supervisors. You will have the opportunity to vote on whether to Calling for elections expected to take place at the August 30th meeting.

“With so many voters signing the petition to put the Wilcox Basin AMA on the ballot, it is no surprise that the bill will go to the ballot in November,” said AWD Chairman Ash Dahlke. I’m here. “Thanks to everyone at the County Elections Office and the Office of the Registrar for their careful and efficient work in certifying signatures.”

AWD is also actively collecting signatures to place the AMA on the ballot in the Douglas Basin, where water levels are rapidly dropping and land subsidence and cracks are also concentrated. The Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) website now includes information pages for his proposed AMAs in both the Wilcox and Douglas Basins.

Once elections are called, “the irrigator may legally irrigate within the proposed Active Management Area at any time during the five years preceding the date of notice of commencement of designation procedure or date of request for designation procedure.” You may irrigate only one acre of land that has been elected,” according to ARS § 45-416. The Wilcox Basin freeze will remain in effect until the final results of the election are certified by the Cochise and Graham County Boards of Supervisors.

This is the first time that groundwater residents have initiated the process of obtaining groundwater protection through citizen initiative, as permitted by the Groundwater Management Act of 1980 (ARS § 45-415). To date, no other Arizona resident has taken advantage of this legal opportunity.

Arizona has five AMAs in other parts of the state, containing 80% of the state’s population, but the Wilcox Basin has a large capacity pumped groundwater supply typically used by large industrial farming operations. There is no safety device to prevent overpumping of water. According to the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR), more than 90% of the groundwater extracted from the basin is used for agriculture.

According to ADWR, overpumping in the Wilcox Basin is causing the fastest land subsidence in the state, cracking the roads across the road. While state, national, and international media have all reported on the dramatic drop in water levels in the basin and the hardships it caused in the community, ADWR has used the Groundwater Management Act to bring water to the Wilcox Basin or elsewhere. It repeatedly refuses to create a new AMA. As ARS § 45-412 permits.

Registered voters who live within the Douglas Basin can find one of the many locations and times when petitions are available from trained volunteer circulators by emailing arizonawaterdefenders@gmail.com.

About the Arizona Water Defenders: Arizona Water Defenders (arizonawaterdefenders.com) is a grassroots community group of Wilcox and Douglas Groundwater Basin residents working to protect groundwater for current and future residents. Organized as a Political Action Committee to circulate ballot measure petitions to create Active Management Areas in the Wilcox and Douglas Groundwater Basins. AWD is committed to ongoing engagement to maintain and rebuild the ability of communities to survive and thrive in healthy groundwater reserves.