Water policies must focus on environment, conservation

Arizona needs a new vision of our water future that recognizes the value of environmental water (including the right to keep water in a stream for fish and wildlife), prioritizes conservation initiatives and modernizes our outdated water laws.

A statewide Sustainable Water Working Group has been forming over the past year to advocate for changing Arizona’s outdated water laws and to call for better accounting of groundwater pumping and its impacts on rivers, streams and springs. The SWWG is composed of 24 organizations (and growing) and over 400 concerned citizens.

The Governor’s Water Augmentation Council is investigating solutions to future water shortages through augmentation and conservation. The council has focused primarily on water augmentation projects to support future growth. The GWAC has placed little real emphasis on water conservation and examining the need for environmental water (current and future).

At the same time, Arizona’s inaccurate policies of treating ground and surface waters as separate are not being addressed. GWAC also fails to include a broad range of stakeholders, including many in the environmental and conservation community and those in rural areas who are seeing first hand the impact of Arizona’s water policies on their way of life.

The SWWG will be advocating for more environmental- and conservation -focused representation in water-policy formation as well as educating and engaging the general public and legislators about the need to include environmental water and conservation in all aspects of Arizona’s water policies.

More than two-thirds of Arizona’s native wildlife depends on Arizona’s riparian habitats. But water diversions and groundwater pumping have degraded most of Arizona’s rivers.

Groundwater pumping depletes streams by robbing baseflow that sustains them during the driest parts of the year and can deplete aquifers that can lead to land subsidence. The result is less year-round flows in the rivers, habitat loss, and the spread of non-native species — which impair the ability of these riparian corridors to support native fish.

According to the Arizona Game and Fish Department website, of 36 native fish species, 20 are listed as endangered and 34 of the 36 are “species of greatest conservation need.”

Riparian habitat loss and reduced water flows in our rivers, streams and springs decreases our opportunities for boating, birding, fishing and hunting and other recreational activities, threatening our $20 billion Arizona tourist industry.

It is past time for Arizona to modernize its water laws and to allow for a new water vision — one that will include water for wildlife and wild places and benefit us all, now and in the future.

The following have signed on to this new water vision: Steve Kozachik (Tucson City Council); Yuma Audubon Society; Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection; Arizona Riparian Council; Save the Colorado River Campaign; Plateau Conservation Committee-Sierra Club; Citizens Water Advisory Group; NAU Our Climate; Sierra Club-Ricon Group; Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection; Wild Horizons Publishing Inc.; Protecting Lands and Neighborhoods; Friends of Ironwood Forest; Friends of Madera Canyon; Arizona Riparian Council; Cascabel Conservation Association; Kids Climate Network Action; West Valley Neighborhoods Coalition; Southwest Wildlife Conservation Center; Sustainable Arizona; Sky Island Alliance; Sierra Club-Grand Canyon Chapter; Friends of the San Pedro River; Green Party of Pima County; Tucson Audubon Society.

Kristen Wolfe is a member of the Sustainable Water Working Group. She lives in Cave Creek. Email her at jwolfe@cox.net .