By Elizabeth Whitman | Phoenix New Times
A bill in the Arizona Legislature seeks to allocate an extra $6.1 million to the under-resourced Arizona Department of Water Resources so it can hire more employees, including scientists.
The bill was pre-filed on December 31, 2019, by Democratic State Representative Rosanna Gabaldón, whose District 2 covers parts of Pima and Santa Cruz counties, not far from areas like the Willcox Basin that suffer from dropping levels of groundwater.
The suggested $6.1 million would come from the state’s general fund, coming on top of other appropriations eventually allocated to the Department of Water Resources for the 2020-2021 fiscal year.
The money would be used “to hire additional hydrologists, groundwater flow modelers, and support staff members,” the bill says. It does not specify how many.
