By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX -- State water officials on Friday approved the first-ever legal transfer of water from rural Arizona into one of the state's "active management areas'' that have restrictions on growth.
The Department of Water Resources will allow Buckeye to withdraw up to 5,926 acre-feet of water a year from the Harquahala basin in western Arizona for up to 110 years. That is enough to serve more than 17,000 homes.
In the same order, the agency said Queen Creek can take up to 5,000 acre-feet a year, sufficient to build about 15,000 homes.
All this comes two years after DWR refused to issue any permits for new subdivisions in some areas of both communities after concluding they lacked the legally required 100-year supply of water. That resulted in a lawsuit by the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona which charged that the agency's modeling is flawed.
None of what occurred Friday is likely to end the legal disputes over how the state implements the historic 1980 Groundwater Act which ties development to available water. But it could take off some of the pressure from developers who have argued that the inability to build in the far suburbs of Phoenix has barred them from building on some of the last affordable land which, in turn, has driven up the price of housing in Arizona.
It also is unlikely to provide help to residents of the state's other active management areas as they start running into problems maintaining the necessary supply of water for sustained growth.
That's because the law the agency used to provide the permission to Buckeye and Queen Creek spells out that there are only three places outside active management areas where transfer of water is allowed. Harquahala is the largest of them.
But there are concerns that this approval, touted in a press release from Gov. Katie Hobbs, amounts to just an interim fix to a much larger problem.
Underlying all of this is that need for developers to show a 100-year supply of water to begin construction.
That's not an issue for municipal and private water companies that can show they have sufficient water, including through contracts to obtain supply from the Colorado River.
They are presumed to have their own assured supply. So anyone the utility agrees to serve who is seeking to build homes within that service territory is presumed to have the amount of water required and can start construction without further approval
Queen Creek and Buckeye, however, don't have such assurances, all of which led to state water chief Tom Buschatzke to conclude in 2023 that modeling shows the communities cannot guarantee there will be enough groundwater beneath them to support proposed new development for the required 100 years.
But Buschatzke said construction can take place if developers find sources beyond what's under their land. And what occurred Friday paves the way for some of that.
"This approval form the Arizona Department of Water Resources unlocks another water supply that Arizona can use to support our communities, economy, and way of life,'' Gov. Katie Hobbs said of the announcement.
Senate Minority Leader Priya Sundareshan acknowledged that what DWR did is legal and in accordance with decades-old laws setting aside water beneath the Harquahala Valley to be available to others who can buy it up from landowners and pay to have it piped where needed. But the Tucson Democrat said she remains skeptical of this as a real solution.
"I don't think it solves anyone's problems really on a permanent basis,'' said the Tucson Democrat. Beyond that, she said the whole concept of denoting one area of the state as a place that other areas can raid for water is "philosophically wrong.''
That question of the effects also has crossed the mind of Sarah Porter. She's the director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University.
"The total amount of water that Buckeye and Queen Creek can withdraw over 110 years is a great deal of water,'' she said, amounting to more than a million acre feet. "This is an area where less than 2% of the rain that falls results in recharge.''
So is the transfer good news?
"It's good news for Buckeye and Queen Creek,'' Porter said. "These are two of the communities that are more challenged to have continued development unless they bring in new water supplies.''
But Porter, like Sundareshan, said this inter-basin transfer isn't a total answer to ensuring that Arizona has enough water to continue to grow -- especially with shortages of Colorado River water and the chances that the drought-caused shortages mean the amount the state can withdraw will shrink.
"Increasingly there's a recognition that we need to find some other water supplies,'' Porter said, both for the Phoenix and Tucson areas.
"It's going to be incremental,'' she said. "And this is one of those incremental opportunities.''
She said some other options already are advancing.
One is the newly approved "ag-to-urban'' legislation that allows developers to acquire water rights from farmers who are retiring their land from agriculture.
Sundareshan said that actually is preferable to taking water from the Harquahala Valley, mainly because it ensures that one area of the state is not robbing the supply from another area. In fact, the new law not only limits where this new development can occur -- within a mile of the retired farmland -- but also caps the amount of water that can be withdrawn.
What's also likely to be a source is "advanced water purification,'' essentially processing sewage to the point where it can be put back into the drinking water supply. While some communities are beginning to move that direction, there has been some pushback.
And there's something else that will prevent new construction from starting in those affected far edges of the Phoenix area.
Simply getting permission to transfer the water is just the first step. State water officials said the cities will need to show they actually have a method of getting the water delivered, something they said could take years and millions of dollars, before any building permits that rely on that water are issued.
Despite that, officials of both cities said they were pleased by Friday's development.
"This has been years in the making and will help diversify the town's water portfolio with a more sustainable source of water that has been set aside for growth in the state,'' said Queen Creek Mayor Julia Wheatley in a prepared statement. And Eric Osborn, her Buckeye counterpart, called it "a significant development ... to ensure our current and future residents continue enjoying a great quality of life.''
There's also a benefit to Harquahala Valley landowners who will benefit financially as they get out of the farming business.
"This transition from farming to renewable energy was the long-term plan for this area and we are grateful to be part of this process,'' said David Lamoreax who said his family has been farming in Arizona for more than 100 years.
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