Willcox groundwater basin designated as Active Management Area
Area with longtime water woes gets first executive AMA designation in Arizona history-- Griffin blamed for once-voter-rejected AMA and legacy of legislative inaction
According to a statement issued today by the Arizona Department of Water Resources (DWR), the director of the state’s water regulatory agency designated the Willcox Groundwater Basin as a groundwater Active Management Area (AMA) yesterday, December 19.
This marks the first time in state history when DWR has taken executive action to create an AMA.
The Willcox basin spans, roughly, from the Leslie Canyon area between the Swisshelm and Chiricahua mountains, through the areas of Sunizona, Pearce/Sunsites, Cochise, Dragoon and Willcox in Cochise County, and north to Bonita and Mt. Graham in Graham County.
The AMA designation will result in some level of regulation— including a freeze on the expansion of irrigable acres, permitting requirements for non-exempt wells (producing more than 35 gallons per minute), grandfathered non-exempt groundwater allotments, and the creation of a Groundwater Users Advisory Council which will advise DWR in the creation of management goals and plans (to be determined subsequent to this designation).
Prior to this point, the Willcox Basin has been subject to no groundwater regulation of any kind, which has made it a desireable location for out-of-state industrial agricultural interests flooding into the area in recent years.
The basin has long suffered substantial effects of groundwater depletion, with many residential and even municipal wells running dry, and is frequently the site of earth fissures.
These later cavernous features have often occurred in roadways, and are due to land subsidence and aquifer compaction.
Once an aquifer becomes compacted, it can no longer recharge or store water.
Under Arizona law, DWR is required to conduct period reviews of areas that are not under groundwater active management in order to determine whether active management is necessary.
As stated in Arizona law, findings of such reviews that may trigger AMA designation include the need to “preserve the existing water supply of groundwater for future needs,” or that “land subsidence or fissuring is endangering property or potential groundwater storage capacity.”
According to records obtained by Cochise Regional News, DWR personnel were quite aware of the level of aquifer degradation and severity of the occurrence of earth fissures in the basin as far back as 2015.
Records obtained by CRN also demonstrate that the agency received numerous complaints and requests for help from concerned Willcox Basin homeowners and residents over this past decade. Many wrote to the agency, sounding alarms of neighbors’ and their own wells running dry.
Nevertheless, records requests submitted by CRN demonstrated that DWR conducted no statutorily-required review of the Willcox Basin— or any other unregulated groundwater basin in the entire state— during this time period, from at least 2015 through 2021.
During the near decade of inaction that has elapsed up to the current AMA designation, industrial agricultural interests— many of which are based out-of-state— have purchased tens of thousands of acres of land in the Willcox Basin. These growers have sunk scores of new irrigation wells into the completely unregulated aquifer— some of which are a half-mile deep.
In 2021, local residents of the Willcox and Doulas groundwater basins (the Douglas Basin borders the Willcox Basin, to the south) initiated a voter referenda through which area residents were granted an opportunity to vote on AMA designations for the two basins. [Full disclosure: I voluteered my time in support of these ballot initiatives.]
The vote occurred in November 2022, with voters of the Douglas Basin approving AMA regulations for their basin, and voters of the Willcox Basin rejecting regulation.
Since 2022, the crisis has only deepened in the Willcox Basin, with the occurrence of earth fissures and well failures ongoing.
Earlier this year, the City of Willcox had a number of its municipal wells run dry— a particularly doomful event, as an increasing number of area residents whose residential wells had also run dry depend on hauling water to their homes from these municipal wells.
Against this backdrop, a number of concerned Willcox Basin residents and smaller growers attempted to find remedies through the Arizona legislature. These efforts culminated with a framework of policy recommendations from a water policy council convened by Governor Katie Hobbs and a 2023 bill which sought to create a new “Local Groundwater Stewardship Area” (LGSA) designation in Arizona groundwater law.
The LGSA bill was sponsored by State Representative Leo Biasiucci (Republican— Lake Havasu), and was an evolution from several pieces of “Rural Management Area” (RMA) bills crafted by former State Representative Regina Cobb (Republican— Kingman).
Both the LGSA and RMA legislation sought to place greater control of groundwater resources in the hands of affected communities, rather than DWR bureaucrats (often seen as being unresponsive) in Phoenix.
Arizona groundwater law was created in its present form almost entirely through the passage of the Arizona Groundwater Management Act of 1980.
This law created DWR and the two forms of regulated areas it oversees: AMAs and Irrigation Non-Expansion Areas (INAs).
The AMA is the most stringent form of regulation offered— with a freeze on irrigable acres, permitting requirements for new non-exempt wells (wells that produce more than 35 gallons per minute), annual reporting of non-exempt water usage, grandfathered allotments for non-exempt usage, and management goals and plans which may mandate non-exempt groundwater use reductions over time.
An INA is the least restrictive form of regulation offered. It creates a freeze on irrigable acres and mandates annual reporting of non-exempt groundwater withdrawals.
A criticism that arose of AMAs during the 2021-2022 AMA voter referenda period— particularly in the Willcox Basin— was that AMAs, as currently provided under Arizona law and administered by DWR, do not provide adequate local control of community groundwater resources.
As such, a number of Willcox basin residents as well as community leaders from other similarly effected counties, had a hand in crafting and supporting the 2023 LGSA legislation, which sought to provide a greater level of local control.
The bill— like every other legislative attempt at local water protections— was killed by Arizona State Representative Gail Griffin (R-Hereford), who is the longtime chair of the House Natural Resources Energy and Water Committee.
[Read CRN’s detailed exploration of Griffin and special interests in the death of the LGSA and other water legislation here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.]
Following the death of the LGSA bill, a number of Willcox Basin residents told CRN that, in their view, it was likely that Arizona Governor Hobbs (a Democrat) would likely compel an executive AMA designation from DWR.
This executive action, they said, would be due to Griffin’s refusal to grant a hearing or a vote on any community-supported piece of groundwater legislation. As such, there would be no alternative but this executive action forcing an AMA— which voters had already rejected in 2022.
Following a DWR announcement in October of this year, signaling their intent to possibly designate the Willcox Basin as an AMA, CRN interviewed a number of basin residents, growers, and outgoing Cochise County District 3 Supervisor Peggy Judd (a Republican).
The shared sentiment was that the AMA is an imperfect solution for their community (and that they still hope for some future legislative action), that other potential alternatives would have been preferred, and that inaction on the part of Griffin contributed in a very large way to the situation now faced in the Willcox Basin.
“An AMA will not work here. People will freak out— because so many people have been working to try and make something that would work. Actually, we would have just taken an INA— if they had given us anything— but Representative Griffin didn’t want us to have anything. That would have kept us from getting where we are,” said Judd.
A number of community leaders in other counties facing similar issues, who have also worked towards other potential legislative solutions voiced similar sentiments.
These included La Paz County District 3 Supervisor Holly Irwin (a Republican) and Mohave County District 1 Supervisor Travis Lingenfelter (a Republican). Both Irwin and Lingenfelter worked on the Governor’s Water Policy Council, which was tasked, in 2023, with crafting water policy recommendations.
“I worked with Regina Cobb when she was trying to run the RMA legislation, worked with her on several bills, and the frustration has been what you’ve probably already heard— that we get blocked by Gail Griffin. We don’t get hearings, we don’t get anything moving forward,” said Irwin. “And now you have a governor that, basically, in my opinion, is like putting her foot down and saying, ‘if you guys can’t get an alternative to the AMAs and the INAs, then I will step in and do it for you.’ That’s kind of the takeaway that I got from her.”
Speaking to Griffin’s stonewalling in the Legislature, Irwin added: “It’s very frustrating that our voices aren’t being heard. […]
“I think the Governor is listening to the voice of leaders and also addressing the conditions of our groundwater basins, when they’ve been being ignored for years. Something’s got to change. We can’t keep going on the way we are,” she added.
Irwin said she is still hoping that some legislative action will occur in the coming session that would create some more desirable form of regulation for groundwater basins in crisis in La Paz County.
Lingenfelter said he is also hoping for some fruitful work in the Legislature, before more AMAs are enacted.
“With regards to an AMA, those of us in rural Arizona agree that it is not an ideal solution, but in the absence of another localized and customizable rural framework, at least future generations know that there will be some level of conservation built into an AMA,” said Lingenfelter.
“According to the ‘Supply & Demand Report’ on the Wilcox Basin published by DWR in December 2023, the annual groundwater deficit in the Willcox Basin is currently estimated at 100,000 acre-feet per year. That’s the amount of water that the Tucson Metro Area uses and clearly is not sustainable. […]
“At the end of the day, all this could be laid at the feet of Gail Griffin,” said Lingenfelter.
“Myself and a growing group of county supervisors and locally elected officials have been advocating and educating for rural groundwater protections for since 2016 that would've helped the Willcox Basin avoid an AMA. We have never been given even one Committee hearing or floor discussion because Gail Griffin as Chair refused to hear it. The fact there isn't a third rural groundwater management framework tool is on her, as is this AMA.
“If it can happen to the Wilcox Basin, it can happen to any rural basin in Arizona,” he added.
[Read full CRN Letter to the Editor from Lingenfelter here.]
Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News— December 20, 2024
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