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Arizona’s Continuing Population Growth Puts Pressure On Water Supply

Millions of people are betting on Arizona. They’re buying homes, starting businesses, and families. The future of how we use our water resources may dictate the future of their success. “We don’t want to put consumers and businesses at risk when they built and there was a hundred years of water but what happens 80 years from now, is there still 100 years of water left,” said Haley Paul, a regional director for the Audubon Society. That question was addressed four decades earlier with the Groundwater Management act of 1980. The idea was the law would ensure when water was taken out, just as much was put back in, creating what they called a safe yield goal by 2025.

Valley Groundwater May Get (Small) Slice of State’s $15 Billion Surplus

The Governor’s proposal for how to spend California’s $15 billion surplus includes $60 million in direct grants to help replenish groundwater in the valley’s most depleted basins.

The measure specifies the money is to be used in “critically over-drafted basins,” which lie mostly in the San Joaquin Valley.

Tainted Valley Groundwater Could Stymie Banking Deals

The big kahuna of California water — Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — has stopped taking supplies from one Kern County groundwater bank because the water is heavily tainted with a cancer-causing agent that is pervasive in Central Valley’s aquifers. While only one banking program has been affected so far, the emergence of this issue could have huge implications for water storage and movement in the Central Valley.

Opinion: Arizona’s Groundwater Management Act Was Groundbreaking, But It Needs An Update

Rural communities are grappling with the challenge other parts of Arizona faced in the past: the need to conserve groundwater for future generations.