Arizona lawmakers OK new water management power in rural areas

By: PAUL DAVENPORT - Associaterd Press | Thursday, May 24, 2007 7:09 PM PDT ∞

PHOENIX -- Arizona lawmakers voted Thursday to expand the state's growth management efforts, approving a bipartisan bill to empower counties and municipalities to place new restrictions on development in rural areas lacking adequate water supplies.

The House's 50-1 vote completed legislative action on the bill, which now goes to Gov. Janet Napolitano, a supporter. The Senate approved the bill on March 8 on a 26-2 vote.

Legislative approval of the measure came a quarter-century after the 1980 enactment of a historic groundwater management law imposing new pumping and irrigation restrictions in "active management areas." Those areas include Phoenix, Tucson and Prescott. Those urban-oriented restrictions were aimed at curbing overdrafts that saw groundwater being depleted faster than natural replacement.

Subsequent population growth in Arizona, the nation's fastest growing state, has started to crowd some rural parts of the state, leaving some straining to secure adequate water supplies.

In parts of eastern and northern Arizona, residents have to truck in water. Elsewhere, there are fears that groundwater pumping could dry up streams and rivers.

"It's time to address growth in the rural areas," said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Marsha Arzberger, a Willcox Democrat and the Senate's minority leader.

The new authority for rural local governments was included in 2006 recommendations by a statewide water advisory group appointed by Napolitano, and the Democratic governor used her State of the State speech to urge the Republican-led Legislature to give the new authority to local governments.

"With our population growth, water management is essential," Napolitano said on Jan. 8.

Arzberger's bill would let rural counties and municipalities hinge their approval of new subdivisions on whether they have assured water supplies. In a bow to property rights advocates, the bill was amended to require county ordinances imposing the requirement be enacted by a unanimous vote of a county's board of supervisors.

A county's water-supply requirement would be binding on cities and towns in the county, but individual cities or towns could impose the requirement on their own even if that county does not.

The requirement for a unanimous vote by a county's board of supervisors significantly weakens the potential impact of the bill, said Sandy Bahr, conservation outreach director for the Sierra Club's Grand Canyon Chapter.

Many counties, she said, probably won't be able to clear the unanimous-vote threshold.

Current state law first enacted in 1973 requires that real estate developers selling lots in non-AMA parts of the state obtain a state determination that a subdivision has an adequate water supply -- one good for at least 100 years.

However, a determination of an inadequate supply only means that the information must be included in documents for a lot's initial sale.

On the Net:

Arizona Department of Water Resources: http://www.azwater.gov/dwr/

Arizona Legislature: http://www.azleg.state.az.us

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