Gov. Katie Hobbs stood before her newly created water policy council in May and essentially said, “Don’t be like the folks who came before you.”
Hobbs didn’t want them to meet for years, as her predecessor’s water council did, with almost nothing to show for it.
Six months later, Hobbs’ council has recommended a slew of legislation and an internal rule change at the state water department — a promising start, even if the centerpiece package dealing with rural groundwater is almost certainly DOA with conservative lawmakers.
But whether this effort moves Arizona forward or sets us back largely depends on what happens next.
It was a political miscalculation to start the rural water group with talk of regulation for areas that have none.
Not that it’s not needed.
Most farmers recognize that the groundwater on which they rely is dwindling and that they must do some things radically different to preserve their livelihood.
But at least some of their representatives arrived at the council with a growing sense of fear and distrust that big-city interests want to take their water and end their way of life.
Whether right or wrong, some farm interests felt they were being pigeonholed into provisions that they had previously balked. They felt they weren’t being listened to when they brought up other ideas for a deeper dive instead.
That’s why Sen. Sine Kerr — who as head of the Senate’s water committee, is one of the Legislature’s two gatekeepers for water legislation — and Stefanie Smallhouse of the Arizona Farm Bureau quit the council midway through in protest.
It’s unfortunate that that happened, because the blowup injected partisan politics into the debate and, at least for now, has turned the worthy idea of creating more flexible regulation for rural areas into a Scarlet Letter.
But while that is a setback, it also presents an opportunity to mend fences.
Some farmers have proposed creating water allotments that would not penalize them for shifting to lower water-use crops. They want more flexibility to bank some of that allotment underground for later use.
Why haven't we done more:To rein in heavy groundwater use?
Others have talked about their desire for help to permanently transition some land away from farming.
Perhaps the best thing the governor could do now, instead of butting heads with lawmakers who may be less than willing to talk about creating rural management areas, is to meet face-to-face with farmers in the state’s most troubled groundwater basins to help flesh out their ideas.
After all, we’ll never make progress if the largest water users in these basins feel like they don’t own the solutions.
As for urban water issues?
The council was tasked with shoring up the state’s Assured Water Supply program, which aims to ensure that development secures water before it builds.
It’s a good sign that Rep. Gail Griffin — who leads the House’s water committee, making her the other gatekeeper for legislation — has introduced bills for some issues the committee discussed, including an effort to beef up enforcement on so-called “wildcat lot” developers that split land to avoid proving those lots have water.
But it’s anyone’s guess what that legislation will look like, or whether the broad coalition that moved these ideas forward will support Griffin’s bills once the language is fully fleshed out.
Ditto for the rule changes the state water department is now considering to help resume growth on renewable supplies in areas of metro Phoenix that heavily rely on groundwater.
The council recommended high-level ideas that are now being distilled into specifics. And, as we know, the devil’s always in the details.
What’s clear is that developers and lawmakers are getting restless with Hobbs’ “pause” on single-family homebuilding in areas that don’t have an Assured Water Supply designation.
They warn that an indefinite stop could imperil the economy, given the acute need for additional affordable housing.
Meanwhile, Senate President Warren Petersen has said the requirement to prove a 100-year water supply is “arbitrary” and longer than what most other states require.
And while he says he isn’t planning to walk back that requirement, his comments suggest that Hobbs could face yet another battle with lawmakers if she keeps the spigot off for too long — and a national perception battle if major news outlets begin publishing headlines that Arizona wants to grow without water.
The governor must avoid both potential landmines, if her council’s work so far is to bear lasting fruit.
Reach Allhands at joanna.allhands@arizonarepublic.com. On X, formerly Twitter: @joannaallhands.
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Can Arizona avoid these landmines to fix its water woes?
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07.12.2023
Gov. Katie Hobbs stood before her newly created water policy council in May and essentially said, “Don’t be like the folks who came before you.”
Hobbs didn’t want them to meet for years, as her predecessor’s water council did, with almost nothing to show for it.
Six months later, Hobbs’ council has recommended a slew of legislation and an internal rule change at the state water department — a promising start, even if the centerpiece package dealing with rural groundwater is almost certainly DOA with conservative lawmakers.
But whether this effort moves Arizona forward or sets us back largely depends on what happens next.
It was a political miscalculation to start the rural water group with talk of regulation for areas that have none.
Not that it’s not needed.
Most farmers recognize that the groundwater on which they rely is dwindling and that they must do some things radically different to preserve their livelihood.
But at least some of their representatives arrived at the council with a growing sense of fear and distrust that big-city interests want to take their water and end their way of life.
Whether right or wrong, some farm interests felt they were being pigeonholed........
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