During this last election, I heard from the voters in my district that they were fed up with high inflation costs, with many hard-working families wanting the high cost of housing addressed. Yet, in the middle of a housing crisis, the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) issued an order halting home construction in large swaths of our state that rely on groundwater as their main water supply. This is not only an overreach of power exerted by unelected bureaucrats, it completely sidesteps the legislative process, stripping power away from legislators and the Arizonans who voted them into office.  

Simply, this decision was made without the proper authority. It was made by officials who are not obligated to consider the need for affordable housing, the critical need for shelter, the loss of jobs, and the economic impacts to our local cities and towns.  

Arizona has a rich, robust and proud management system for protecting our environment and most vital resource, Arizona’s groundwater supplies. This system has created programs that are the envy of the Western United States, such as the largest groundwater replenishment district in the country, the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District (CAGRD), the Arizona Water Bank, Arizona’s Groundwater Management Act, and numerous programs to recycle our existing water supplies.   

These programs are the reason that Arizona uses the same amount of water that we used way back in 1957, even though we have grown by over 6 million new residents.   

During the creation of these historical conservation programs, one critical and important principle has always remained constant – they were adopted through our constitutional process of creating laws, which requires approval by the elected officials who serve in the Arizona Senate, the Arizona House of Representatives, and ultimately signed into law by the governor.  

Today it seems that this is no longer the case.   

In 1995, Arizona’s legislative process created a system to protect our groundwater aquifers that requires home builders to secure a 100-year water supply prior to building a home. In addition, if that home is served by groundwater, then that groundwater must be replaced. No other industry or land use is held to this standard, which was intended to strengthen Arizona residents’ ability to achieve affordable home ownership with a reliable water supply.   

This heightened standard was also designed to  ensure that if our groundwater supplies  were in jeopardy, that the state would look to land uses other than housing (such as commercial development or agriculture) for possible reform.  Prioritizing homeowners over corporations seemed like the right thing to do.   

But the opposite is happening today. Unelected bureaucrats at ADWR have decided to deny groundwater for housing sorely needed to address Arizona’s critical housing affordability crisis. This has not only stalled housing projects, it has taken more affordable areas of the Valley out of the housing market entirely.  Allowing housing in some areas, and not others, has raised housing prices substantially. 

If we cannot provide groundwater for homes, then you would think that all types of development would be denied access to groundwater as well. This is not the case. In some areas of the Greater Phoenix Metro Arizona, you cannot build a home, but any corporation can build a large groundwater using facility like a manufacturing plant.  This adds more pressure to our housing crisis as we attract workers, who are also struggling to afford a home, and leads to the draining of our aquifers.  

This decision has significant implications for all of Arizona from the increased cost of housing, the questionable management of our aquifers, and the economic implications to our local cities and towns.   

Previous elected officials created this system to ensure that this exact scenario would not happen. Rather than halt housing projects and make our affordable housing crisis even worse, elected officials, not bureaucrats, need to consider the needs of our citizens to ensure they, their families, and their futures are protected.

Sine Kerr, a Republican, is a former state senator in Legislative District 25, and a former chair of the Senate Natural Resources, Energy, and Water Committee.