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Farms swallowing most of Arizona's water Page 4 of 4 ~ information about water use. Arizona manages in great detail water use in five groundwater-management areas: Phoenix, Tucson, Prescott, Pinal County and Santa Cruz County. Flagstaff and Yuma also provide a significant amount of information. But much of rural Arizona is a question mark. The water supply hasn't been mapped, and water use is charted erratically. State officials worry about the level of groundwater pumping in fast-growing rural areas, but they are powerless to regulate it and lack resources even to keep track of it. One of the key recommendations that leaders made at November's Arizona Town Hall was to expand water regulation statewide and give local governments more authority to prevent growth where there isn't adequate water. Under existing laws, a rural county can't reject a subdivision proposal even if the state has concluded there isn't enough water. Property rights advocates have prevented changes to the law. For urban areas, new homes and businesses will claim an increasing amount of water as growth expands outward. Little farmland remains to be converted in Maricopa County, and the cheapest land is on the Valley's edges, where there were no farms. That means water will be used where none was before, forcing cities to dip into their reserves. Groundwater is mostly off-limits to residential growth. What's left is a small amount of SRP water still being used by farmers and the remaining Colorado River water now delivered to Phoenix and Tucson through the Central Arizona Project Canal. Phoenix and its suburban neighbors can still grow on CAP water for a decade or more. They can extend that time frame with new allocations included in the recently passed Arizona Water Settlement Act, which turned some water over to Indian tribes but also released extra water to many cities. Tribes may be willing to lease some water to cities, which would add more of a cushion. "We're fortunate to have had good water-management planning," said Jo Miller, conservation coordinator for Glendale. "We don't have the vulnerability that other cities have. But we still need to conserve. We live in an arid region. We can always point to someone else and say they're using too much, but we're all part of the solution." For the water conservation specialists - the front-line troops who help you find leaky toilets and teach you how to water your lawn better - the question of water use and management is summed up in an article of faith they repeat often: We have enough water; just not enough to waste. Email this article Print this article Most popular pages Click to send Click to print Today I This Week http://www . azcentra1.com/php-bin/ clicktrack/print. php ?referer=http://www.azcentra1.com/...l /24/2005