groundwater

Since the arrival of the 2020 COVID pandemic in mid-March, private businesses and public services alike have struggled to confront the same challenge:

How do we serve our customers as efficiently as before the pandemic?

How do state agencies with significant customer-service mandates, for example, provide the same level of service when the majority of our staff is now disbursed, performing jobs remotely that once upon a time were done from a single, hive-like office?

The process of providing property owners with detailed information about their groundwater rights has played out almost unchanged for decades. It has been slow. And cumbersome. And inconvenient to people holding a right to use groundwater.

That is now changing. In mid-January, the Arizona Department of Water Resources’ website will feature a new “interactive” search map that – for the first time – will allow the public to conveniently access geographical and other data about their groundwater rights.

Beginning the week of February 5, Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) will be making an extensive effort to measure water levels in wells in the Northwestern Region Basins of Arizona.

So, consider it the perfect post-Christmas gift.

After months of complicated efforts to negotiate a path to distribution, the producers of a remarkable documentary on the creation of Arizona’s landmark groundwater-protection laws finally have broken through.

Frustrated residents of the Northwest Basins Planning Area told Arizona Department of Water Resources staff at a late-June meeting in Kingman that something needs to change fast about plummeting underground water tables in some of the area’s aquifers.

They just don’t know, as yet, what that something is.

The list of challenges to living sustainably can be lengthy.

Conserving energy. Protecting precious resources, such as water, in times of scarcity. Buying locally. Thinking globally. 

It’s getting to be quite the to-do list for the citizen of good conscience. Everyone wants to live sustainably. Everyone wants to do their bit for society. But we all seem to have a lot of bits in our pockets these days.

Doing one’s bit can be especially complex when one of our “sustainability” missions clashes with another.

(This is the second of a two-part historical examination of the Arizona Groundwater Management Act of 1980. Part 1: A question-and-answer interview with former Gov. Babbitt)

Former Arizona Governor and former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt recently agreed to talk with the Arizona Department of Water Resources about the landmark Arizona Groundwater Management Act, which was passed under his watch as governor in 1980, as well as some related water issues.

Water users in southeastern Arizona drew a little closer on Tuesday to possible resolutions of the tough water issues the region faces.

For the second time in five weeks, Arizona Department of Water Resources staff journeyed to Willcox to hear out the concerns of area residents about their water supplies -- and, to give those residents a chance to flesh out potential resolutions. "You do need to find a balance, it's true," said Melissa DiPeso, a Willcox realtor attending the April 19 sessions. "Our water is getting harder and (our wells) are getting deeper."