Water experts denounce Arizona groundwater bills, ask Ducey to veto

• SB 1268 would let cities opt out of the 100-year water requirement
• SB 1400 would phase out county protections if not unanimously reapproved
• Legislation could enable stalled Sierra Vista development

Several Arizona water experts are calling on Gov. Doug Ducey to veto legislation passed this week that they denounce as weakening groundwater protection standards in two counties and threatening Arizona's reputation for smart water management.

The bills' proponents, including lawmakers who represent Cochise County, said they are written narrowly to avoid upending statewide water law but are necessary to protect individual rights. Both passed with overwhelmingly Republican support.

SB 1268 and SB 1400 would likely enable developers in Cochise and Yuma counties to build without the current requirement that they prove there's a 100-year supply of water available to support the resulting growth. They would only have to follow those rules if the targeted city accepted them or if county officials voted unanimously in 2018 to renew them for five years.

"We should be moving in exactly the opposite direction" and seeking greater groundwater protections in more counties, said Dave White, senior sustainability scientist and director of Arizona State University's Decision Center for a Desert City.

To those who study and recommend sustainable water policy, these bills are a threat to Arizona's hard-earned reputation for smart water management in the face of rapid growth. It's a reputation Ducey has often touted in contrast to California's dire groundwater woes.

"This is private property rights we're talking about," House Speaker David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista, said during a floor debate.

100-year supply of water

One bill, SB 1268, allows cities in those two counties to exempt themselves. SB 1400 is an answer to the law that originally enabled the county ordinances, effectively amending it to require that the counties renew the ordinances every five years if they want to keep them.

Arizona protected the groundwater underlying its major urban centers in 1980 with a law requiring proof of a 100-year supply for any new homes. The restrictions did not cover rural counties until a 2007 law allowed them to opt in — which Cochise and Yuma did.

Residents of smaller counties such as Cochise are more reliant on groundwater but less protected against overuse. They don't have the renewable river water that supplies the Phoenix area.

"It's even more important to have sustainable management of groundwater supplies in these rural areas," White said.

One architect of the 1980 Groundwater Management Act said the bills are bad for the state.

"Given (Ducey's) strong support of sound water management and the contrary signals these bills send, I am hopeful he will veto them," said Kathleen Ferris, former executive director of the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association.

"They are not just a step, but a leap backward."

The association, which represents the 10 largest cities in Maricopa County, sent a letter last month urging the governor's veto, and resent it to him this week after the Legislature's final passage of the bills. The letter was signed by the board's officers representing the Phoenix, Peoria and Scottsdale city governments, on behalf of the entire association.

"SB 1268 does not just affect rural Arizona but the state as a whole," they wrote. "It will be seen as chipping away at Arizona's overall success in managing its water, which has kept Arizona from having a California-like water crisis."

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton on Thursday also called on the governor to veto the bills.

The governor's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lawmakers representing Cochise Count proposed the bills and defended them as efforts at asserting local control where locals have worked hard to conserve water.

Opponents, including White, said they appear designed to favor one embattled development in the county: Sierra Vista's Tribute subdivision.

Tribute, a project of developers Castle & Cooke, would include about 7,000 homes using groundwater that environmentalists and the federal government have said could dry up the nearby San Pedro River.

Congress in the 1980s dedicated water for a Bureau of Land Management-administered stretch of the river known for migratory birds, some of them endangered. The state then approved Tribute, but a judge later determined that it couldn't go forward because there was no evidence the homes would have a 100-year supply of groundwater without drying the spring-fed river in violation of the federal water right.

That case is currentlyon appeal, but the two bills stripping the 100-year requirement could make it moot.

Castle & Cooke Vice President Rick Coffman said the planned homes will conserve water and recharge much what they use back to the aquifer. Tribute won't drain the river, he said.

"I would certainly encourage the governor to sign (the bills)," Coffman said. "The river is and will continue to be more than adequately protected as a major regional and local source."

He called the continuing lawsuit a "de facto moratorium" on Sierra Vista's growth, and said the city wanted the legislation.

Sierra Vista City Manager Charles Potucek provided a written statement saying SB 1268 "restores the ability of cities in Cochise and Yuma counties to have a voice in the development process," and that the city has a strong history of water conservation.

Cochise County Supervisor Ann English supports the legislation. She said cities should be allowed to control waters locally without controls imposed by the state. She said she opposes mandates that the state often places on local governments without their consent, and believes it's likewise wrong for counties to do the same to cities.

"When we passed (the county water rule), the cities did not object and I assumed they were on board," English said. "Now they want to assume control of their own decisions regarding water and are wiling to accept the consequences, good or bad."

'A consumer-protection issue'

Current and future Cochise County homeowners may face dried-up wells if the bills become law, University of Arizona law professor and water scholar Robert Glennon said.

"The (100-year) adequacy provision is really a consumer-protection issue," he said.

Far from removing federal water rights as a growth impediment, Glennon said, the legislation may actually trigger a move of those claims from state court to federal court. That could delay a water-rights adjudication process that already has taken decades without resolution.

Ultimately, making an exception in water rules for one big development sends a poor message to businesses considering a move to Arizona, ASU's White said.

"They want to be confident that the state is managing its groundwater resources in a sustainable way," White said. "I don't see how this is sound groundwater resource management."

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