By Tony Davis | Arizona Daily Star
To authors of a new, highly critical study, Arizona’s system of groundwater management encourages urban sprawl.
But to an official and lobbyist for a homebuilders group, the system encourages construction of affordable housing.
The affordability issue is a major reason that Spencer Kamps of the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona supports the state’s groundwater management rules, which allow new suburban subdivisions to be served by pumped groundwater if they have no renewable water supplies from the Colorado River.
Kamps’ comments focus on a new report from the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University that hammered at the state-enabled spreading of new subdivisions across Pima, Maricopa and Pinal counties with no reliable water supply besides groundwater.
