Pinal County has water, and just needs to prioritize
Mark Twain once wrote of his difficulty with math by ascribing a quote about the flexible power of numbers to British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Farmers, developers, landowners, residents and elected officials in Pinal County are now empathetic with Twain because we are trying to dispel a growing notion that “Pinal County is out of groundwater.”
The Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) is working on revising a model based on outdated assumptions and incomplete data that have perpetuated the myth that Pinal County is facing a water shortage. In fact, Pinal County has plenty of water for today, tomorrow and 100 years from now.
The agricultural and municipal sectors rely on substantial and robust aquifers and are responsible stewards of water for today’s needs and for future demand. Water is an expensive resource which incentivizes farmers to use "best management practices" to use water as efficiently as possible. Water conservation is a hallmark of agricultural endeavors.
ADWR’s predictive model assumes how much water would be available roughly 100 years from today, in the year 2115.
Errors, even the slightest ones, in these projections could cascade into substantially faulty assumptions that affect water and economic interests today. That’s not a proper way of supervising water resources.
The water resources department's recent findings concerning Pinal County is just a regulatory forecast that tries to estimate the amount of groundwater that will be available 100 years from today.
However, we do believe some issues need to be addressed. There is a higher “want” for groundwater than there are fully permitted lands. We believe that’s a regulatory and policy issue and a water availability issue.
We have and are continuing to work on a series of solutions that we believe
Arizona Department of Water Resources could support as commonsense answers to get all us to a "win-win" on water in Pinal County. For instance, we could design a sensible regulatory framework that prioritizes and compartmentalizes additional water “wants.”
Also, we should assist farmers who want to stop farming so that their lands could be converted to other uses that consume less water. And we should create voluntary programs to augment water supplies that can be paid for over time.
In addition, we fully support detailed, credible, long-term planning predictive modeling. That’s why the Pinal Partnership Water Resource Committee is working with the Bureau of Reclamation
on a 3-year study to incorporate realistic supply and demand projections.
Also, we take into account the climate impacts of the area and a universal review of the groundwater aquifer system. This study should provide us with a more accurate representation of what Pinal County's water future will look like. Therefore, we will be better able to adopt and implement adaptation and mitigation measures to address potential supply concerns as they arise.
We look forward to working with Arizona Department of Water Resources in making corrections and improvements in the agency’s predictive model. We need everyone involved to be satisfied that we have calculated realistic supply and demand projections.
Until that is complete, it is important to understand that Pinal County has plenty of water today and will have plenty of water for centuries to come. Arizona, and Pinal County will remain a leader in conservation of water resources.