DWR sets management goal for Douglas groundwater active management area
Community feedback pays off, water agency adopts goal enabling concrete reductions of groundwater depletion-- but the fight for groundwater protections likely continues to be an uphill battle.
Arizona Department of Water Resources (DWR) Director Tom Buschatzke issued an order of adoption today, formally establishing the management goal for the Douglas groundwater active management area (DAMA).
The goal establishes the basic intent of the DAMA, and it is as follows:
“The management goal of the Douglas AMA is to support the general economy and welfare of water users in the basin by reducing the rate of aquifer depletion by an ammount established in the first management plan and by additional reductions established in each subsequent management plan every ten years thereafter.”
As acknowledged by Buschatzke’s order of adoption, the finalized goal was crafted following public input regarding a goal DWR had proposed in May. That proposed goal read as follows:
“The management goal of the Douglas AMA is to support the general economy and welfare of water users in the basin by attempting to reduce the rate of acquifer depletion by 2035 and every ten years thereafter.”
This proposed goal grew a great deal of criticism and input urging stronger groundwater protections from DAMA residents who believed the language stating that reduction of groundwater depletion would be ‘attempted’ by a point twelve years into the future was far too weak, and ultimately unenforceable.
As such, the finalized management goal issued by DWR today is a victory for residents seeking nearer-term relief to the basin’s ongoing groundwater crisis.
Under Arizona law (ARS 45-569), “not later than two years after the designation of a subsequent active management area, [the DWR director] shall promulgate an initial management plan for the active management area and may provide for subsequent management plans to be promulgated during the time set for achieving the management goal.”
So, in a nutshell, it appears that through his order today, Buschatzke has called for subsequent management plans— which will include “additional reductions” in groundwater depletion— every ten years after the period of the first management plan. Under the law, the first management plan must be adopted within two years of the DAMA’s creation.
The Douglas AMA was created through a majority approval by Douglas Basin voters of Proposition 422 in November of 2022. This was the first time in Arizona history that local voters initiated local groundwater protections. The vote replaced the existing Douglas Irrigation Non-Expansion Area (INA) and expanded the area of AMA groundwater protection over the entire groundwater basin (the Douglas INA had only coverd a portion of the basin).
Under Arizona law (ARS 45-569), the DAMA’s management goals and management plans may only be adopted following periods of public input and public hearings. So, it appears public hearings and periods of public input regarding the formation of the crucial first management plan are next on the DWR docket.
Public input will be crucial in establishing what groundwater depletion reductions will need to be met during the DAMA’ first management period.
Review of public comments thus far submitted by basin residents and other shareholders concerning the formation of the DAMA’s goal and management plans paints a picture of a fierce tug of war underway for our basin’s groundwater resoures. One one side, area residents, business owners, and moderately-scaled growers have called for meaningful reductions in groundwater use. On the other side of the issue, large agricultural interests have called for virtually no reductions in groundwater use, and other caveats beneficial to their industry.
For example, an email sent by Riverview LLP to DWR on January 18, 2023, pertaining to the nacent DAMA management goal, called for kicking fulfilment of the AMA’s goals to a point 50 years down the road, with minimal groundwater use reductions during that time.
Minnesota-based Riverview operates at least two industrial-scale feedlots within the Willcox Basin (which borders the Douglas AMA to the north). The company has purchased many thousands of acres of farmland in both basins, and is now the dominant agricultural entity in the area. Through this expansion, Riverview has drilled many new wells, some reaching approximately half-mile (about 2,400 feet) into the earth.
When voters replaced the Douglas INA with the expanded Douglas AMA, this took a good portion of land, and attached irrigation rights, off the table for industrial-scale growers like Riverview, who had been buying up most any sizeable tract of land with irrigation rights in the former Douglas INA.
Under the law, a freeze on irrigation of new acreage went into effect the moment the Cochise County Board of Supervisors called for an election on Prop. 422— and, once voters approved Prop. 422, any irrigation rights issued under the former Douglas INA that had not been used within the year prior to the irrigation freeze were lost.
[Note: the issue of this loss of unused INA granfathered irrigation right was at the heart of a recent failed attempt to overthrough the voter-approved Douglas AMA. Read about it here and here.]
This meant that, for companies like Riverview and Trinut (a large Calfornia-based nut grower that had also been buying up land and rights in the INA), the area of avaiable expansion within the Douglas Basin had sudenly sharply diminished with voter approval of Prop. 422.
As such, it should come as no surprise that, in their January 18, 2023 email to DWR, Riverview recommended that DAMA regulations allow for growers to “leave acres out of production to move their allocated water to other acres” and allow for “the ability to buy water rights from other land owners who take land out of production.”
It should be noted here that Riverview and other industrial-scale irrigators in the area had conducted similar practices, transferring the irrigation rights of unused corners of square parcels of land, left unirrigated through the use of circular irrigation pivots, to previously unirrigated land. This practice, conducted through a loophole in Arizona groundwater law, resulted in substantial expansion of irrigation of new acreage within the previous Douglas INA, and was a sore subject of controversey in the community.
As a side note on this issue, in 2021, District 14 Arizona State Representative Gail Griffin, who chairs the House Natural Resources, Energy and Water Committee, introduced and saw the passage of a bill which makes this process of transferring irrigation rights (either in an INA or AMA) much easier. Review of Griffin’s campaign finance disclosures reveals heavy funding from the agricultural industry and their lobbyists.
Under the vision for the DAMA articulared in their January 18 email, Riverview recommended that the first ten years of the active management area’s implementation be spent gathering data on groundwater use and establishing “grandfathered total water rights.”
Another letter sent to DWR containing recommendations of many local large-scale irrigators for the Douglas AMA’s management goal recommended only a one-percent per-year decrease in groundwater use over the next 25 years, with the ability to alter these reductions every five years.
Meanwhile, owners of smaller wells, such as ranchers and homeowners, have been experiencing the loss of water resources, their homes, and livestock, for years.
Under Arizona law (ARS 45-569(B)), if DWR finds that certain consequences of groundwater overuse (such as land subsidence and earth fissures) are occurring within a voter-approved AMA, the agency must implement management plans that mirror, as closely as possible, the management plans created for the state’s AMA’s created through the passage of the 1980 Arizona Groundwater Management Act.
DWR has long documented the “Elfrida subsidence feature” in the center of the Douglas Basin, and, as a result, should implement management plans which allow for at least the same level of groundwater use reduction as those called for under existing AMA management plans.
However, as communications to DWR from the industrial agriculture sector illustrate (not to mention the legislative activities of lawmakers like Griffin), gaining even those levels of groundwater reductions and protections is likely to be an uphill fight, requiring continued and vocal community input.
[Full disclosure: I volunteered my time in support of Prop. 422.]