By Brandon Loomis | The Arizona Republic
Population growth and groundwater pumping are taxing central Arizona’s Verde River to the point that parts of it could soon run dry during summer months, a U.S. Geological Survey report finds.
The report’s release late last week prompted area leaders to call for conservation programs to prevent an economic and ecological crisis.
“We can’t continue to study this to death,” Verde River Basin Partnership Chairman Tom O’Halleran told about 200 people gathered at a high-school auditorium to hear the scientists’ findings. “We can’t continue to point fingers. It’s all of us.”
There are 6,400 wells punched into the aquifer that supplies virtually all of the river’s flow when rain and snowmelt aren’t contributing.
That’s what scientists call base flow: the ground’s discharge, and the expected flow during dry months.
