A Republican-sponsored bill that would repeal the Willcox Active Management Area and establish groundwater conservation requirements in other designated rural areas is advancing through the Legislature.

SB1520 would allow the creation of Basin Management Areas that would impose a series of restrictions intended to preserve groundwater in Gila Bend, Hualapai Valley and the Willcox Groundwater Basin, which would be converted to the Willcox Basin Management Area.

A Basin Management Area could be initiated in those three basins if at least 10% of registered voters petition the director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources. It could also be initiated if the director finds an accelerated decline of groundwater levels, land loss due to groundwater withdrawal that endangers property or potential storage capacity, or other conditions in those basins, according to the bill.

The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Tim Dunn, R-Yuma, would establish councils for each Basin Management Area that would include representatives from the industrial and agricultural sectors, municipal water companies and an at-large member who resides in each basin.

The bill passed the Senate on March 13 and is scheduled to be heard by the House Natural Resources, Energy & Water Committee on March 25.

The Basin Management Area proposal is the latest attempt to create a new regulatory framework to address groundwater declines in designated rural areas and serve as an alternative to Active Management Areas and Irrigation Non-Expansion Areas. Those designations and their regulations have been around since the Groundwater Management Act of 1980, but now farmers and rural residents believe that law is too rigid and doesn’t allow enough local control.

Dunn isn’t the only legislator concerned with Arizona’s decades old groundwater policies, and another set of twin bills introduced earlier this session by Sen. Priya Sundareshan, D-Tucson, and Rep. Chris Mathis, D-Tucson, would’ve also enacted groundwater preservation measures in certain rural areas.

But the legislation, dubbed the Rural Groundwater Management Act, never received a hearing despite being touted as a bipartisan measure by Gov. Katie Hobbs and a group of Republican rural lawmakers during a press conference on Jan. 30.

Dunn’s current bill is similar to legislation that was introduced last year by then-Sen. Sine Kerr. That bill stalled in the House.

Kerr said farmers and representatives of irrigation districts in those basins approached him and requested some new regulations — within reason.

“Each basin has a little bit of different needs or suggestions. So that’s where we … came up with this bill,” Dunn said.

SB1520 is currently undergoing a stakeholder and negotiation process and could face potential amendments as Dunn looks to work with a number of groups, as well as Democrats and the Governor’s Office, to refine the legislation.

Supporters say the bill strikes a middle ground between maintaining conservation efforts, addressing the needs of the farming, ranching, industrial and mining industries, and preserving local control.

“It gives certainty and specificity to water rights for agriculture and other water users,” said John Boelts, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau. “It sets up the opportunity for a basin, a specific geographic area that all uses the same groundwater source to work together, to live within their means and chart their own future, rather than being dictated to about groundwater use by somebody in a different part of the state.”

The bill would also preserve those water rights for a wide variety of groundwater users, Boelts said.

“It offers some protections to people who have been farming, ranching, mining, running a water company for municipality rights to water, so that, unlike an (Irrigation Non-Expansion Areas) that just kind of fixes everything in place, it establishes a water right,” he said.

There are still questions from environmental groups on whether the bill does enough to preserve groundwater and protect aquifers.

The legislation calls for a 10% reduction — 1% each year — in annual groundwater use within 10 years of the formation of a Basin Management Area, which is inadequate, said Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon chapter.

“In some ways, I think it makes things worse, because it gives the impression that it’s doing something when it isn’t,” Bahr said.

Bahr also criticized the bill for not including more basins. The Rural Groundwater Management Act proposed by Sundareshan and Mathis included five basins: Gila Bend Basin, Hualapai Valley Basin, Ranegras Plain Basin and the San Simon Sub-basin. It would’ve also converted the Willcox Active Management Area to Rural Groundwater Management Areas.

Dunn’s bill would leave most of the state with no groundwater pumping protections, she said.

There’s a possibility that more areas could be designated as Basin Management Areas, but only if data supports designating those areas, Dunn said.

“So I’m open for conversations, but we need the data from the department and that’s part of our ongoing discussions,” he said.