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

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THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC FROM TIM MODU PAGE SPECIAL REPORT: RURAL WATER CRISIS state's water supply DrainingArizona If you own property in Arizona and you live outside the groundwater management areas, you can drill a well with few restrictions as lone as the water is Photos by MaIrk Henle/The Arizona Republic Playing in the tree while Hunter transfers the water is his 8- year -old daughter, Sierra. Cody Hunter, 11, climbs down after checking the water level of his family's 5,000 -gal- Ion water storage tank. Yavapai County. In the Verde Valley alone, there are 7,208 exempt wells, most of them supplying private homes or ranches. Counting registered wells, which produce more water and are more closely regulated, there are more than 21,000 wells in Yavapai County; compared with slighly fewer than 15,000 in .Maricopa County. ■ Wells are highly concentrated near the Verde River, Oak Creek and other streams in the Verde Valley. Salt River Project, which holds the rightsto surface water in the Verde River system, says those wells are depleting the river, but the law doesn't recognize that link. SRP, other water providers and environmental groups have asked a court to overturn that part of the law, Verde Valley growth projections A study by Yavapai County and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation projects that private wells will grow at a rate faster than regular water system hook -ups. This will make it harder to manage water supplies. Growth 2000 2005 2035 2050 rat6 Syster,hoolc -ups 21300 24,211 39,823 46,281 117% PrivaternaIi 5,634. Sources: Salt River Project, Ariz. Dept. of Water Resources, James Abundis/ Yavapai County, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation The Arizona Republic Read more on water issues The Republic has reported extensively on Arizona's water crisis and how it affects all of the state's residents. You can read these special reports online at azcentral.com: Conservation: How we use water now will have a lot to say about what kind of Arizona we leave for our children. Find out how to save water indoors, outdoors and in your every- day life. Read the report, complete with video tips on mak- ing your home water- efficient, at water azeentral.eom. Journey down a troubled river: No American river works harder than the Colorado, which provides water and power for nearly j0 million Westerners. But the driest five years in, half a millennium have starved the river. Read the report at azcentral.com/spedals /river. SUNDAY, JUNE 26, 2005 A Pumping endangers state rivers and wildlifE By Shaun McKinnon The Arizona Republic CAMPBELL RANCH — From a clearil in the ash trees and willows here, t Verde River whispers as it flows by. Along these banks, only a dozen miles so below the Verde's headwaters and f above most of the tributaries that add to t river, you can hear birds, the buzz of i sects, a twig breaking underfoot. But for; its serenity, this stretch of the Verde is pt ducing an increasingly vocal debate abo how rural Arizona can continue to grc freely and still protect its natural t sources. "It would be a shame if one of our last h ing rivers were reduced to an artificial created flow," said h ichelle Harringtc w`ho works on Verde issues for the Cent for - Biological Diversity, a 'Hutson -bass conservation group. "I really hope we c be more forward - thinking than that." The debate delves into some of Arizona most arcane water law, a sweeping 3 year -old court case on water rights and definition of water sources that, changed, would affect communities acro the state. The conflict has also allied en, ronmentalists with a traditional foe: Sa River Project. At issue is a basic question: Do we pumping groundwater affect the levels nearby rivers and streams? In some statt such as New Mexico, there is no questic Groundwater and surface water are treat, the same. But in Arizona, the law recogniz them separately. For most scientists and conservatia ists, there is no doubt that too mug groundwater pumping can reduce the flc of a nearby river. Federal courts have evi agreed in southern Arizona, where ei dente shows that growth around the Fe Huachuca Army base in Sierra Vista h devastated portions of the San Pedro Rivt But it remains to be seen if these deg sions will establish a legal precedent. TI Army has successfully sought colagre sional protection from the court decision and growth around Sierra Vista has n slowed. Stretches of the San Pedro now dry t part of the year, and the Center for Biolo ical Diversity says wildlife habitat vanishing, taking threatened and enda gered species with it. SRP is intervening on the Verde, one the two major, river systems that supp the utility and its Phoenix -area custome with water. It asked a court last year to sb more than a dozen Verde Valley landow ers from diverting water from the river t its tributaries. Those cases are pending. The Verde is also part of a larger watt rights battle that has been windit through the courts for 31 years. In th, case, which will eventually settle claims to the Gila River and its tributa ies, including the Verde, lawyers ar judges are trying to define when watt pumped from a well belongs to a river SRP.argues that wells too near the Verc are sucking away water that should co: tinue flowing to Horseshoe and Bartle reservoirs. It wants landowners and coi munities to find other water source "There just isn't enough water in all the; areas," said Dave Roberts, SRP's wab rights manager. "They're going to have import water or limit their growth." The environmental groups and SA want major well- drillers to complete hat tat conservation plans that assess the e fects of drilling wells so near the Verde t its headwaters. At least six threatened i endangered species live along the upp, Verde, including the bald eagle, the Sout western willow flycatcher and the raze back sucker. A 2004 study by two retired U.S. Geolo ical Survey scientists, who were workh with groups that oppose pumping, su gested that time is not on the Verde's sic They found. that Prescott's and Prescc Valley's plans to pump 8,700 acre -feet fro