Phoenix – The governor of Arizona and the legislature controlled by the Republican Party disagree on the regulation of groundwater regulation in the rural areas of the State, and time is running out.
Democratic governor Katie Hobbs I was standing with local republican leaders At the beginning of this year’s session, optimistic that the Republicans of the Legislature would adopt their proposal to create rural areas of groundwater management. But almost four months later, the conversations have stagnated and frustration has been mounted since both parties try to find a solution to preserve the water that becomes increasingly scarce in the middle of a prolonged drought.
Negotiators have not met since the beginning of April, said the hobbs office. Almost at the same time, the Republicans and some interest groups were frustrated with a separate proposal from the Arizona Water Resources Department to reduce overwhelming in the Willcox basin for a percentage that is “unattainable,” said Senator Tim Dunn, one of the Republican negotiators.
The overwhelming refers to when the extraction of groundwater exceeds what is being replenished.
Hobbs has said that if legislators postpone, usually in the summer, without treatment, she will take the matter in her own hands.
The water basins in the rural areas of Arizona are largely regulated, and Democrats and Republicans have different visions on how to slow down exhaustion.
The negotiators, including the staff of the Governor’s Office and the bipartisan legislators, have faced the mandates proposed to reduce the pumping of groundwater of the aquifers. Republicans who introduced their own plan say that of the Democrats is too high. Democrats say that the republican proposal is not high enough.
Both parties do not agree on the composition of the local councils that would govern the use of groundwater, the water basins that would be included and the path for future regulation.
Meanwhile, groundwater supplies continue to be reduced to the point that some wells in rural areas have dried. Residents face the option to drill more deeply, transport water or move, said Sarah Porter, director of the Water Policy Center at Arizona State University. Managing groundwater will not reverse the decline, but it can stop it, he said.
The Arizona regulatory framework to manage groundwater was first promulgated in 1980 and focuses largely on the most populated areas of the State, including Phoenix and Tucson. Porter said that active management areas were designed to apply to growing cities and are too heavy to replicate in rural areas where agriculture is in the heart of local economies.
The Arizona Water Resources Department has proposed a separate reduction in the overflow in the Willcox basin, which caused restlessness among Republicans and others that say that could endanger companies in the rural area of Arizona.
For years, legislators on both sides of the hall have failed to obtain proposals to administer groundwater in the rural area of Arizona to the Governor’s desk or signed.
In 2022, voters approved a voting measure to establish an active management area in Douglas, a rural city on the southeast edge of Arizona. In recent months, Hobbs used the executive authority to create another in the Willcox basin, another rural community north of Douglas.
Bipartisan negotiators have not gathered in several weeks in a framework that would significantly expand the scope of the underground water management law, according to several people.
“I think it is quite clear that the rural negotiations of the groundwater are not going anywhere,” said Democratic state senator Priya Sundareshan, one of the legislative negotiators.
In a Tuesday statement, Hobbs accused Republican legislators of refusing to come to the negotiating table.
Dunn said that since the last negotiation meeting has been regularly met with people about which language they could find pleasant despite the agrio state of mood on the proposal of water resources for the Willcox basin and the legislators of a short time have left to reach an agreement. He said that he would like to call another meeting with the Hobbs office and the Democratic legislators, but said that the proposal of the aquatic resource is not a good omen for conversations in the legislature.
“If that is his final game, we can’t get there,” Dunn said.
Philip Bashaw, CEO of the Arizona Agriculture Office, which has been involved in the elaboration of rural groundwater law of the Republican Party in the last two years, said that the proposal of water resources frustrated negotiations on bills and fed anxiety.
“He definitely took much of the globe air, that’s safe,” Bashaw said.
