By Melissa St. Aude | Casa Grande Dispatch
Some area water representatives are not enthusiastic about the state’s plan to alter its recharge program.
At a Thursday meeting of the Pinal Active Management Area’s Groundwater Users Advisory Council, the state’s enhanced aquifer management plan was reviewed.
The plan is supposed to bet- ter manage aquifers by changing the state’s groundwater credits formula to encourage recharge and recovery to occur in close proximity to each other. The plan creates a new sys- tem of adjustable aquifer “cuts” — non-recoverable volumes of water — to apply to storage and long-term storage credits.
Currently, the cuts to the aquifer are about 5 percent. Under the new plan, people or entities which recharge with- in a one-mile radius of where they are pumping groundwater would see rewards. Those entities would experience zero cuts to the aquifer.
But anyone who recharges and recovers water outside a one-mile boundary of a recharge facility could face cuts to the aquifer of between 10 and 20 percent.
Active Management Areas “were created because each area is unique with unique problems and challenges,” council Chairman Oliver Anderson said Thursday. “There is some concern about a broad-based statewide policy.”
Area Director Jeff Tannler told the group that the agency is in the process of collecting comments about the plan.
