Our Own Survival Is at Stake: AZ Is Using Up Its Groundwater

In 1980, AZ began regulating groundwater in the largest cities and suburbs under a landmark law that called for most of these areas to achieve an overarching goal by 2025: a long-term balance between the amount of water pumped from the ground and the amount seeping back underground to replenish aquifers. Forty-one years later, the state’s latest data shows most of the areas where groundwater is managed remain far from achieving a long-term balance, a goal known as “safe yield.” Groundwater is still overpumped in most of the state’s “active-management areas,” or AMAs.  In many places, aquifer levels continue to decline. ASU researchers warn that groundwater has been seriously over-allocated under the current laws, allowing for unsustainable pumping that threatens AZ's water future. Leaders urgently need to reform Arizona’s groundwater rules to safeguard these finite reserves and prevent aquifers from continuing to drop. - AZ Central