Arizona lawmakers next year will be wrestling with what to do in the shadow of a worsening shortage in one of this state’s most vital water supplies. 

Our groundwater must be protected and safeguarded through the best management possible. And we must remain vigilant and wise to ensure reliable water supplies can support responsible growth. This is why continued planning, investing, and being efficient with our water is vital now and for our collective future. 

Arizona promotes itself as a world leader in water management. Yet rural wells and rivers are drying up since sustainable water management plans are hindered by laws no longer appropriate for these times. Our relationship with desert water has changed, and our water laws must change too. 

The Colorado River water shortages should not define Arizona agriculture as much as they should trigger changes toward a more resilient food system that we have needed all along. Let’s now jumpstart them in a bold manner. 

Arizona is dropping another $30 million in to buy -- or, at least, rent -- some water rights to help stave off further drought-related cuts in what the state gets from the Colorado River. 

As Arizona contends with a 20-year dry-spell and declining water availability, the desert may provide a solution in drought-tolerant crops.   Drought-tolerant crops have been farmed by various Native American tribes for thousands of years and have steadily become more prevalent in today’s society, but ...

There are thankful ranchers across Arizona, myself included, after an extraordinary monsoon season that filled our scorched dirt tanks with water and re-seeded our rangelands with knee-high green grass. But well below the surface, and just up-stream, the drought persists.

Last week, Salt River Project announced that it plans to spend nearly $1 billion to add 16 new natural gas units to its powerplant in Coolidge, one of the largest fossil fuel investments by a utility in recent memory. I served on the SRP board from 2016-2020, and this decision stunned me. It is wrong-headed, unnecessary, and out of step with where responsible electric utilities are moving in this country.

Add a water shortage with serious implications for Pinal County farmers to the challenges lawmakers will have to deal with when the Legislature comes back in 2022.

Climate change, drought and high demand are expected to force the first-ever mandatory cuts to a water supply that 40 million people across the American West depend on — the Colorado River.