Opinion: Groundwater in rural Arizona is drying up, but that could begin to change if voters in the Willcox and Douglas basins agree to create an Active Management Area (AMA).
By Paul Hirt opinion contributor | Arizona Republic
March 22 is World Water Day, an annual commemoration bringing attention to the more than 2 billion people who lack secure access to clean water. Some of these people live right here in Arizona.
This year, World Water Day is focused on groundwater, a crucial source of drinking water and crop irrigation accumulated in underground aquifers. Because this water is saturated in sand and rock, it is replenished slowly and easily depleted by pumping.
Dependence on overexploited and declining groundwater supplies is a long-standing problem in Arizona. Venerable Arizona author Charles Bowden wrote an insightful book about groundwater depletion in 1977 titled “Killing the Hidden Waters.” He was not alone in his concern.
The Arizona legislature debated the issue as long ago as the 1940s. But not until 1980 did it finally pass a meaningful law – the Arizona Groundwater Management Act – which created “Active Management Areas” (AMAs) to address groundwater overdraft. But after four decades of concerted effort, groundwater pumping in most AMAs remains well above what is considered “safe yield.”
Rural Arizona’s water situation is dire
