Gov. Katie Hobbs wants to play hardball.

She told lawmakers in her State of the State address that if they didn’t act on rural groundwater use, she would step in.

Then, just two weeks later, Hobbs threw a hand grenade into negotiations — by scheduling a public meeting on Jan. 30.

Why is an informal, and at this point, non-binding session so potentially explosive?

Because many view it as a first step toward designating the rural Gila Bend basin as an Active Management Area (AMA), the state’s most stringent form of groundwater regulation and one that farmers have for years resisted.

No one in the basin southwest of Phoenix petitioned to start this process, despite evidence that groundwater levels are in steep decline. And that’s a major departure for Arizona.

State law allows the Department of Water Resources to make these determinations without a basin’s water users voting or elected leaders asking for it.

In fact, it says the state water director “shall” periodically review basins with no form of regulation to recommend which should become an AMA.

But no director has ever........

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