Key Points:

• Groundwater bill unlikely to be finalized before the Legislature adjourns

• Negotiations are continuing

• Gov. Katie Hobbs and Democrats claim partisan opposition

Residents of rural communities concerned about depleted groundwater levels will likely have to wait longer for a solution after the latest groundwater bill stalled in the Legislature.

Senate Bill 1520 would allow the creation of Basin Management Areas, which would impose a series of restrictions intended to preserve groundwater in Gila Bend, Hualapai Valley and the Willcox Groundwater Basin. 

The legislation would repeal the Willcox Active Management Area, established to preserve the existing groundwater supply in the Willcox Basin, and convert it into a Basin Management Area.

However, the bill is unlikely to be finalized before the Legislature adjourns, especially since lawmakers are expected to begin advancing budget bills within the next couple of weeks.

“We’re not giving up on the overall conversation,” Sen. Tim Dunn, R-Yuma, the bill’s sponsor, said. “The reality of getting something done before the end of the session … there’s really no time for that.” 

Dunn said negotiations are continuing and he’s working to find consensus with Democrats and other stakeholders.

However, Gov. Katie Hobbs’ office and other Democrats said the two sides have moved farther apart in agreement on the legislation.

“Unfortunately, legislative Republicans are putting big corporations and special interests over the everyday people they represent,” said Christian Slater, the governor’s spokesman, in a statement. “As they have for decades, they continue to stick their heads in the sand and stonewall bipartisan, common sense reforms. For months, they’ve given the Governor’s Office no response, and no indication of any willingness to compromise.”

Slater said the governor is willing to call a special session if it leads to meaningful reform. 

“But she won’t call one if Republicans … continue to stonewall on behalf of their special interest donors and out-of-state corporations,” he said.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been working for years with municipalities, residents, agricultural groups and environmentalists to establish groundwater regulations for rural basins, but progress has been stalled due to disagreements over the restrictions needed to preserve groundwater in mostly unregulated areas. 

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 the governor and a group of Republican rural lawmakers.

Part of the debate over Dunn’s bill stems from how much groundwater pumping should be reduced in these areas, as well as a desire from those who oppose the measure to see it include more basins.

Dunn said a recent update from the Arizona Department of Water Resources on the draft management goals for the Willcox Active Management Area also delayed progress on the bill after officials asked if his measure could align with those goals.

According to a Department of Water Resources presentation from early April, the agency is looking to reduce groundwater overdraft in the basin by at least 50% by 2075.

Overdraft occurs when the volume of groundwater extracted from an aquifer exceeds the amount being replenished.

“The discussions pivoted to ‘what can we do? Can we match that?’” he said. “I don’t believe our Basin Management Area can compete with that.”

Dunn’s legislation would reduce pumping by 10% — 1% each year — within 10 years of the formation of a Basin Management Area. The Democratic legislation proposed up to a 40% reduction in groundwater pumping over 40 years, although the cuts would have been incremental and started at a lower rate, Sundareshan said.

“There’s still a desire for an alternative that’s better than the (Active Management Area), but it seems like the department is focused on these higher cuts that … put the people with the water rights … out of business,” he said.

Dunn has remained steadfast about maintaining flexibility for each basin and avoiding groundwater reductions that could hurt farmers.

John Boelts, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau, said in April that Dunn’s proposal strikes a balance between maintaining conservation efforts, addressing the needs of the farming, ranching, industrial and mining industries, and preserving local control.

Other proposals, such as those from Mathis and Sundareshan’s bills, called for groundwater reductions that could hurt the agricultural industry, he said.

However, opponents have said the bill wouldn’t do enough to reduce groundwater pumping and would continue to benefit large farming corporations.

Sundareshan said the bill she co-sponsored with Mathis would have offered a better solution and she lamented that the legislation never received a hearing despite the bipartisan support from rural Republicans.

“We had moved closer to the Republicans in that bill, where we had listened to conversations we’ve had over the past year and we really wanted to get to that bipartisan solution,” said Sundareshan, who has served as the key negotiator for the Senate Democrats. “But unfortunately Senator Dunn’s bill, it seems like they took two steps backwards away from our negotiating table.”

The implications of not passing legislation this session could be “devastating” to residents of the rural communities contending with groundwater declines, she said.

“These rural communities experiencing these declines have Republican legislators representing them,” she said. “I think it’s got to be devastating to see their own legislators basically say that they don’t care about their residents who are losing access to their wells.”