Willcox’s wells are running dry
Wells are still running dry in Willcox. And you think that would create more alarm than it has.
The aquifer is the southeastern Arizona community’s only source of water.
And once that groundwater is gone, it’s gone.
There will be no more orchards. No more nut groves. No more wineries. No more Willcox.
Because here’s the problem: The aquifer doesn’t retain its shape once the water is pumped out. Once underground caverns collapse, it’s unlikely that water levels will rebound even if Willcox finds a way to slow decades of heavy agricultural pumping.
So much water has been removed, according to a new Arizona Department of Water Resources model, that the aquifer has fundamentally changed. Its capacity has shrunk. And though the majority of its water remains, most of it is too deep or stuck in sediment to economically pump out.
Which is why wells are going dry and some people don’t have enough water to take a decent shower. They lack the six figures it takes to drill deeper, to where the water is now.
The situation is only going to get worse because of how many farmers – many from states like California – have planted nut groves, some of the most water-intensive plants you can grow.
They have wells and the right to use whatever comes out of them.
If you think this is an indictment of agriculture, it’s not. Farming is a key part of our economy — and necessary for our long-term sustainability. It’s a mistake to think we can shut off farmers’ spigots and rely on produce and meat from far-removed states.
What’s more, farmers are just doing what the market dictates — and for years, that has meant planting waterintensive plants like cotton and alfalfa (and more recently in Willcox, nuts). Without the incentives or the infrastructure to move to less water-intensive plants, they’re going to keep planting what they can sell.
I don’t blame them for that. What I do blame is the lax regulations that allow non-renewable water to be mined from aquifers all over the state.
And how we can’t seem to do anything to stop it.
Yes, Arizona has the Groundwater Management Act of 1980, which is part of the reason why Phoenix and Tucson haven’t run out of groundwater despite such rapid growth. But the rules that help manage groundwater use don’t apply outside of active management areas, which includes Willcox and most other rural areas— where groundwater mining also is rampant.
How much water are these rural areas sucking from their aquifers, and how much might they have left? We don’t know. In many areas, it’s not even politically feasible to measure what’s being pumped, for fear that the measurement would lead to restrictions.
A grassroots group in Willcox proposed ideas to incentivize water efficiency on farms and fund conservation programs, but the effort died once families started fighting.
Meanwhile, state Sen. Gail Griffin, who represents this area, thought it would be a good idea to scale back, not beef up, some of the provisions in the Groundwater Management Act (mercifully, those bills died).
A closed-door group that Gov. Doug Ducey convened last year also offered ideas, but lawmakers never incorporated them into a bill.
And previous legislation that would allow counties to collect donations to help people whose wells have gone dry has gone unused for lack of funding. There was hope that some of the larger, corporate farms would contribute, but that hasn’t happened.
That frustrates me.
We lack the coordinated leadership to work out a compromise.
At the same time, most of our resources are tied up with building support for the Drought Contingency Plan (DCP), a three-state agreement to keep more water in Lake Mead. It would require Arizona to take additional cuts that would hamstring farmers in Pinal County, unless they can make deals with cities and other higher-priority water users to trade water.
Yes, it’s painful. But the agreement would drastically lower the probability of lake levels crashing and Arizona having to make even deeper cuts.
I don’t know where that debate is going to go, but groundwater will undoubtedly play a key role in the discussions. It’s where people will be tempted to turn when cuts to Lake Mead hit.
And worse, if we fail to join DCP, the Bureau of Reclamation commissioner has said that the other states will move on without us. When lake levels fall and shortages are declared, Arizona will be the first in line to take cuts, forcing it to rely on supplies internal to this state.
Guess where most of that water is? In the ground.
In that case, what happens in Willcox — or Mohave or LaPaz counties — means just as much to us in Phoenix where water is more plentiful. Because we’re going to need every drop we can get.