Thursday, January 31, 2019

Urge your state Rep to vote yes on Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan. But OPPOSE the HB2545 Amendments


Tonight at 12 is the deadline to sign the drought contingency plan. 

Please, contact your state Representative and ask them to vote yes on HJR2002 Colorado river drought contingency plan that authorizes the director of the Department of Water Resources to sign the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan. But ask them to oppose the HB2545 Amendments. (See details below.) 

To find your district: 

https://azredistricting.org/districtlocator/

Use that district to find your representative:

https://www.azleg.gov/MemberRoster/

The drought-contingency package. that covers how Arizona will deal with the loss of some of the water we get from the Colorado River, was unanimously approved by the House Committee on Natural Resources, Energy and Water and now goes to the full House. It provides even more money to Pinal County farmers to help keep agriculture alive. The original plan called for giving the farmers $5 million in state tax dollars to drill new wells and construct delivery systems to replace the river water they will no longer get. But HB 2545 increases that to $9 million. On top of that, the state will put up another $20 million toward the cost of getting more groundwater for those farmers.

Sandy Bahr, director of the Grand Canyon chapter of the Sierra Club, said lawmakers were looking at the whole issue the wrong way, particularly with their focus in trying to sustain farming in Pinal County through pumping more groundwater. 'Today we have an opportunity to move down a more sustainable path regarding our water future. Unfortunately, that's not what we're doing.' Much of the drought contingency plan is designed 'to appeal to a few interest. The plan is just a stopgap measure, dealing with how the state will divide up the available water only through 2026 - and doing it by allowing farmers to pump more water out of the ground despite a history of subsidence from prior pumping. And now the state is going to pay for more of that to happen. And she said one reason members of the California congressional delegation agreed to vote to provide funds to construct the Central Arizona Project to deliver water was that the farmers agreed to give up claims to groundwater.

I just read a memo written by Sandy Bahr from the Sierra Club who is keeping up with the drought contingency negotiations. The proposed bills allow us to go on like we have been to attract development without considering how climate change will deplete our water supply. Remember Griffin - the realtor who fought to dismantle the regulations that protect our groundwater from over zealous developers? You can find her name on the HB2545 Amendments. These legislators see growth as the path for economic security, but we don't have enough water to maintain that kind of growth in our desert. They will suck us dry. 

 • HB2545 Amendments; Colorado River drought contingency (Bowers: Fernandez, Griffin) includes the following: 
  • establishes the temporary groundwater and irrigation efficiency projects fund and appropriates seven million dollars to it from the general fund. It also diverts $2.50 per acrefoot of the groundwater withdrawal fees in the Pinal Active Management Area to the fund as well. This fund is called “temporary” despite the fact that it runs the same length of time as the entire DCP, from 2019 through 2026. This fund is for constructing wells and infrastructure to increase groundwater pumping in Pinal Active Management Area and the Harquahala Irrigation Non-expansion Area. 
  • establishes the Arizona System Conservation Fund and appropriates $30 million from the general fund to the fund. This is to pay tribal nations for water to which they are entitled and keep that water in Lake Mead to delay or limit additional shortages on the system.
  • includes a limited repeal of the Water BUD (water that cannot reasonably be used directly) and is a bill to basically benefit one water company. It allows for the accumulation of longterm storage credits for stored water while at the same time pumping groundwater. Those seeking this will be back to open it up even further. Already, this applies to mining interests. It is basic math that you should not get credit for storage while at the same time you are pumping groundwater.
  • allows for the exchange of long-term storage credits between active management areas. This further complicates the water structure in Arizona and could result in more localized problems with groundwater pumping, including land subsidence.
  • allows 95 percent of effluent that is recharged to be pumped back out in a year and allows anything below that 95 percent to be credited to a long-term storage account, and allowing the credits to be used to meet requirements for assured and adequate water supplies. (https://tucson.com/news/local/babbitt-colorado-river-drought-plan-just-the-beginning-of-tough/article_6c99d4e1-549a-552c-9a0c-460bc10e0048.html
  • appropriates $2,000,000 from the general fund for one year to the augmentation and conservation assistance fund for conservation grants for conservation of groundwater in the active management areas. 
  • Includes language that indicates that we need renewed efforts to create long-term solutions and that the health of the Colorado River is important to our state’s economy, plus that sustainable long-term plans that encourage conservation are important.
There are additional public dollars that will be spent to accommodate the Pinal County agricultural interests and to prop up the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District. The Central Arizona Water Conservation District has approved $5 million for the temporary groundwater and irrigation efficiency projects fund. Tucson is committing to contribute 35,000 acre-feet of water over two years to Pinal County agriculture in exchange for long-term credits in the Tucson area and also wants the additional credit for effluent. The largest chunk of the funding will be to buy additional water from the Gila River Indian Community in order to prop up the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District, an entity that promotes unsustainable sprawl development and groundwater pumping, provided there is water being recharged somewhere.

As is often the case in the political world and certainly the case when it comes to water, all is not what it appears to be. This is not about sustaining agriculture for the future or dealing with what is now the increasing aridification of our state. It is about keeping value in lands for future development and sending the message to developers that Arizona is open for business as usual – heavily subsidized development and agriculture – and will continue to allow unfettered development despite our water issues.

The Sierra Club is pleased that some funding, although limited, will now go to conservation, and that there is some mention of the need for long-term plans, but we still think the Governor and Legislature could develop a better plan or could at least improve what is on the table. We ask that the Legislature consider a long-term plan that better protects our rivers, including the Colorado, limits groundwater pumping, and looks at deeper conservation – shifting to crops that use less water and limiting urban sprawl and unsustainable growth.

We encourage you to reject HB2545 and work on a plan that is good for all Arizonans and our future. Thank you for your consideration. For more information, please contact Sandy Bahr at (602) 999-5790 or sandy.bahr@sierraclub.org

More information: 


1 comment:

  1. Just called my reps Pamela Powers-Hannley and Randall Friese and spoke to their staffers asking them to vote yes on HJR2002 Colorado river drought contingency plan that authorizes the director of the Department of Water Resources to sign the Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan and to oppose the HB2545 Amendments.

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