Colorado River Commission & 7-States Meeting Inside Info: Arizona

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.... y �Y� yva a.ua 111 L11G est to pull through the drought. In some of those same areas, hun- -eds of families must haul water to Heir homes or pay to have it hauled. heir numbers are growing steadily i builders break ground in even ore remote places where there are > municipal water systems and the - oundwater is too deep or skimpy to ill wells. Communities are going to great ngths to secure water supplies, and to scramble is generating tensions. -escott and Prescott Valley bought nd outside their limits for the right drill wells and pipe water back to :w subdivisions. Developers in Pay - in are importing water from unin- ►rporated areas to meet the town's .quirements that new homes come ith an outside water source. "They're trying to remedy their •oblems by taking what we have," dd Chris Benjamin, who owns a nall resort park in unincorporated gar Valley, the area targeted for the iport plan. "They'll suck us dry. )mething needs to be done so it's sir for everybody and not just the weloper." But there is evidence that even lese efforts will not be able to avert crisis. State and local records ana- zed by The Arizona Republic doeu- ent an alarming strain on rural wa- r supplies. An increasing number of individual ells are drawing groundwater at an un- iown rate and in unknown quantities. ore large subdivisions are being built soon will be on land where water applies are uncertain or clearly inade- iate. Even if water is available, the unber of homes drawing on it is esca- ting: Since 2001, projects involving an :timated 20,000 new houses have been unched across rural Arizona. Over the :xt decade or so, more than 200,000 -w homes are planned, many in north- estern Mohave County, which is now tarsely populated. The rural water crisis will be driv- e by those thousands of new homes, ►me in so -called wildcat subdivi- ons that sprout outside local zoning ws and a much greater number in .ore familiar planned communities . areas without proven water ipplies.. It's that lack of assurance that adds the risk. In Maricopa County and rur other mostly urban areas of Ari- ma, cities and home builders must -ove there is a 100 -year water sup - .y before the state will allow a new ibdivision. In rural Arizona, those protections )n't exist. Subdivisions can be built ien when the state knows there is .sufficient water to support the new )mes or when little or no informa- on is available about the water )urce. Attempts to change the law the been repeatedly blocked by wmakers and rural interests who )n't want the state to tighten regula- on, suggesting the demand for wa- r will continue to grow even as the apply shrinks. GROUNDWATER icing use raises concerns In the and West, water generally .11s into one of three categories: sur- .ce water from streams or rivers, - oundwater pumped from subsurface luifers, and treated wastewater, or ef- uent: Rural Arizona's climbing popu- tion depends mostly on groundwater. Groundwater, much of it in aquifers at took thousands of years to fill, is not renewable resource. This supply is winking because it is being used fas- r than nature can replace it. For rural rizona's growing population, however, iere are few alternatives to groundwa- r. A few communities, such as Flag - aff and Williams, draw on small reser- Ars. Cities and towns on the state's estern border hold water rights to the Aorado River. But few other areas eve developed sources other than - oundwater. The Central Arizona Project, which irries Colorado River water, serves tly three counties: Maricopa, Pinal id Pima. Although a few places out - de those counties were able to secure nited allocations from the canal, they ive no way of moving the water. All the surface -water rights in wide vaths of Yavapai and Gila counties Eddie Hunter opens the valve on his portable 500 - gallon water tank so he can pump it into the 5,000 - gallon storage tank at his home outside Ash Fork. How wells hurt rivers Arizona law recognizes two kinds of water: • Groundwater pumped up through wells from underground aquifers. I • Surface water from rivers and streams, often stored in reservoirs. h The law does not recognize a connection between the two, but . is" j science does. Studies show that extracting groundwater can reduce the flow of a stream or river if a well is too close. Too much pumping in the damage A 4u,f uif wrong place can a river and the wildlife habitat it provides. How it works: j( ~ 4 \ Underground water ® When a water well is When typically moves through an drilled too close to a river, well is pumping water aquifer and into a stream or river water that would have from an aquifer, it may also.draw� that flows through the water flowed into the river is water from the river itself, further reduce table. Water can also flow from withdrawn from the the river's flow and, in extreme cases, dry up stretches a river back into an aquifer. ground, reducing the flow. of the river. were claimed by Salt River Project more than a century ago for its custom- ers in metropolitan Phoenix. Conse- quently, residents in those counties can take none of the water that flows by in streams and rivers. That . leaves groundwater. The demand on groundwater re- serves in rural Arizona is climbing steadily. In 1990, there were 1,382 new wells drilled outside the areas regu- lated by the state's groundwater man- agement laws. In 2004, there were 2,894 new wells drilled. From 1990 to 2004, there were a total of 30,997 new wells, according to state records. The problem is, in many areas, there's no way to know how many wells is too many because so little informa- tion exists on how much water the aqui- fers contain. The only measure is how fast water levels drop from the top of the aquifer. State and local governments don't even know how much water is being pumped from the aquifers. The state monitors larger industrial and munici- pal wells. But Arizona law allows indi- vidual landowners to drill wells and use what groundwater they need without reporting just how much that is. Under the law, the owner of one of these "ex- empt" wells can pump up to 35 gallons a minute, or more than 18 million gallons a year, enough to serve a small subdivi- sion of about 100 homes. Most exempt wells produce only a tiny fraction of that amount. But that fraction adds up when multiplied by the thousands of unmonitored wells operat- ing across rural Arizona. This uncer- tain drain on the aquifers makes it even harder to predict how many people an area can sustain. Yavapai County has more wells than any other county in Arizona, more than 21,000 in all. Nearly half are unmoni- tored, more than 7,000 in the Verde Val- ley alone. Although many of those wells produce only enough water to serve one or two families and a small farm or ranch, the potential collective drain on groundwater supplies is enormous. The life expectancy of such private domestic wells is also unknown. Ex- perts say some could last indefinitely while others could dry up next week. And when they do go dry, cities such as Flagstaff and Prescott fear that home- owners will turn to them for water. Although Arizona law distinguishes between groundwater and surface wa- ter, hydrologists see a fuzzier line. A well drilled too close to a river can draw water away from that river, reducing its flow. That threatens wildlife habitat and takes water from downstream users like metropolitan Phoenix. Growth around Sierra Vista has dev- astated stretches of the San Pedro River. Riparian areas are disappearing as wells suck water away from the river, which now dries up along some stretches during warmer weather. The Verde River is also showing signs of overpumping. Environmental activists fear that a plan by Prescott and Prescott Valley to pump water from land purchased in Chino Valley will fur- ther drain the river. The proliferation of wells could dry up stretches of the Verde within 80 to 100 years, according to a study con- ducted for a citizens group that opposes plans to export water from Chino Val- ley. And SRP warns that wells along the Verde will reduce water available for its users in Phoenix: (See the related story, "Pumping endangers state rivers and wildlife," on the next page.) "What are we going to leave the next generation ?" said Michelle Harrington, who is working on Verde River issues for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy group. "Is our heritage going to be bone -dry streams and rivers and coo) de-cutter houses as far as the eye can see? I hope that's not where we're going." WEAK LAWS: Buyers get little protection Overpumping uncertain supplies of groundwater is part of a larger wa- ter- management problem clouding rural Arizona's future. An especially alarming trend in the past five years is the accelerated growthof subdivisions that are being built even though developers and lo- cal and state officials know there may. not be enough water to serve new homeowners over the long term. Hundreds of homes maybe in one of these subdivisions. Collectively, the number of homes could reach the hundreds of thousands in the next 25 to 30 years. These developments are being built in areas not covered by ' P Source: U.S. Geological Survey James Abundis/ The Arizona P.epublic laws that tie growth to the available water supply. Those laws, enacted in 1980, apply only to Maricopa, Pinal, Pima and Santa Cruz counties, along with the Prescott area of' av; County. In those areas, developers must show they have a 100 - year assured supply of water, a require- ment verified by the state. Outside those areas, a builder need only seek review of subdivision plans by the state Department of Water Re- sources, which examines the in- tended water source and decides whether it is adequate. That finding is advisory only and doesn't prevent the builder from selling homes. A review of state records by The Republic found that 60, or 35 percent, of the 171 subdivision applications processed since 2001 received an in- adequate finding from the state. Most applicants have proceeded with plans that would result in more than 4,100 new homes — and they did so legally. Moreover, the number of applications has been soaring. In 2001, applications for two subdivi- sions, with a total of 51 planned homes, were submitted. In 2004, ap- plications for 39 subdivisions, with 2,447 planned homes, were filed. Those figures reflect little of the anticipated growth in Yavapai or Co- chise counties and none of the nearly 200,000 new homes that have been proposed for Mohave County. In an increasing number of cases, See RURAL WATER Page A18