What a year for water
While disputes arose all over the place, Tucson stayed ahead of the game.
While water disputes simmered from the Rocky Mountains to Cochise County ranches all year, Tucson officials made deals worth millions of dollars.
Very few of the disputes were actually resolved, so get ready for another round of arguments, stop-gap measures, work-arounds, and big-time negotiations next year.
At the state, Gov. Katie Hobbs is pulling out a big stick on groundwater, telling the Legislature that if they don’t act to protect groundwater she’ll do it herself.
She set in motion the creation of local rules for limiting groundwater pumping in the Willcox area in October, the first time an Arizona governor has ever made that move.
Attorney General Kris Mayes is going after the big-time water users, particularly those based in other states or countries.
She says the unlimited water pumping by two megafarms in La Paz and Cochise counties are a public nuisance. Last month, she announced she’s preparing lawsuits against them.
Down in Cochise County, residents took an unprecedented step two years ago by voting to create their own groundwater rules. They spent 2024 trying to establish exactly what those rules should be.
It’s not a simple task. The governor, state lawmakers, ranchers, and city residents are all working on it.
Across the border in Sonora, ranchers in the San Pedro River Valley are watching their wells go dry as drought lingers and a nearby copper mine sucks up all the water. On the Arizona side, environmental groups are suing the state for not protecting the San Pedro River.
Wheeling and dealing
Meanwhile, Tucson officials found themselves in a decent bargaining position.
The city has banked water for decades and now has a massive reservoir in the Avra Valley. Tucson officials say they still need to be careful with their water supplies, along with their rights to Colorado River water, but the decades of preparation mean the city isn’t nearly as desperate as other Arizona cities and towns.
Tucson officials signed a deal to leave some of the city’s share of Colorado River water in Lake Mead, which will bring in $12 million from the federal government next year.
They also signed agreements with Scottsdale, Peoria, and Gilbert to store water for them, along with a previous deal with Phoenix, that will bring in $1.9 million.
Within the city, Tucson officials continued promoting small-scale water conservation.
They’re trying to coax residents to use smart meters to detect water leaks more quickly. They’re also offering rebates to push business owners and residents to get rid of ornamental grass, among many other conservation programs the city has had in place for years.
One looming issue that hasn’t been sorted out yet is cleaning up the PFAS contamination (“forever chemicals” that break down slowly and cause cancer and other illnesses) of water supplies near Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.
Our Black Friday sale is still going. Many thanks to all of you who upgraded this week. We couldn’t do any of this without you!
Battles ahead
The state legislative session is going to start in a few weeks and, like most years, water will be a top priority.
Tucson Democratic lawmakers Sen. Priya Sundareshan and Rep. Christopher Mathis weren’t exactly thrilled with how this year’s legislative session ended.
“Where we differed in these meetings is that Democrats are trying to protect rural residents from losing their wells and small, longtime farmers’ ability to keep their family operations going. Republican proposals, on the other hand, would privilege the large corporate pumpers that have arrived within the last decade,” Sundareshan and Mathis wrote in an op-ed in the Arizona Republic.
For their part, GOP lawmakers already signaled they plan to fight Mayes and Hobbs on their efforts to crack down on unlimited groundwater pumping.
As for their broader water agenda, Republican Sen. T.J. Shope, who was recently named as chair of the committee that oversees water issues, cast his party’s water plans as a way to combat the housing crisis.
“The Ag-to-Urban Conservation Program would have allowed (agriculture and homebuilding) to work together to increase housing supply while conserving water, but Gov. Hobbs elected to stand in the way,” Shope said in a statement last month.
Behind it all, the states that use Colorado River water can't agree on how much water each state should get.
Arizona officials say in as little as three years the Upper Basin states will be violating the rules of the 1922 Colorado River Compact by not sending enough water to Lower Basin states like Arizona.
Without an agreement, the states could be headed to court, which would threaten the decades-long tradition of collaboration among the states.
“An outcome long held to be unthinkable for the Colorado River Basin — litigation — has entered the realm of the thinkable,” the Arizona Daily Star’s Tony Davis wrote.
That wraps up our year-in-review for 2024. As you could see over the past few days, this year has been an eventful one, and next year is going to be just as interesting.
Subscribe today and stay on top of it all!
