Arizona drafts plan to conserve water, boost housing development
Joe Duhownik
PHOENIX (CN) — Arizona’s Department of Water Resources released a draft proposal Wednesday that it says will conserve water and promote new housing construction by converting farmland into urban developments.
The so-called “Ag-to-Urban,” plan would allow farmers in areas of Phoenix and Pinal County that require active management of groundwater to relinquish groundwater rights in exchange for credits of physical water availability, then sell the land and water rights to land developers to build new communities with a lower water demand than the farming operations.
“We’re unlocking a large amount of water to work the way you need to,” advisor to the department director Ben Bryce told stakeholders in a public meeting Wednesday morning.
By reducing large, often unreplenished agricultural groundwater use with lower-demand urban developments, the department estimates it can save millions of acre-feet of water over the next 100 years while keeping up with a growing housing demand.
“We don’t want to get rid of one unreplenished use to replace it potentially with a different one,” Bryce said. “We’re trying to patch the holes in the bucket and move toward holistic groundwater management.”
Unlike most parts of the state, new developments in the Phoenix and Pinal County active management areas must receive a designation of assured water supply, typically by proving the existence of a 100-year supply of groundwater beneath the pre-developed land.
But in 2023, amid concerns of dwindling aquifers, Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs placed a moratorium on new developments relying solely on groundwater, instead requiring that developments achieve a designation by replacing 25% of the groundwater it would have used with another source like Colorado River water, treated wastewater or surface water.
“The Ag-to-Urban program is not a program to create designations,” Bryce said Wednesday. “Although, the Ag-to-Urban program can support that.”
Under the program, farmers in either of the active management areas would voluntarily relinquish groundwater rights on individual acres of land irrigated by groundwater in three of the previous five years. In exchange, a farmer would receive conservation credits based on the number of acres relinquished.
The farmer would then sell the acres to land developers and water providers that would in turn apply the conservation credits to its requirement to prove physical availability, more easily achieving a designation of assured water supply and allowing new commercial and residential developments to proliferate.
All rules of an active management area would remain enforced. It’s unclear how long it would take to transfer the land and credits to the developers and water providers.
In the Phoenix active management area, one acre would trade for 100 acre-feet worth of water conservation credits. In Pinal County, one acre would trade for 70 acre-feet of credits.
One acre-foot of water, or nearly 325,851 gallons, can typically serve three Arizona single-family homes for one year.
Ag-to-Urban developments would have to follow strict conservation rules, such as prohibitions on non-functional turf and evaporative cooling technologies and features like manufactured lakes, ponds or water parks.
“This is a way that we are moving away from unreplenished groundwater use," Bryce said. “During an era of unmet demand, and era of limits. The building that would happen on these lands needs to reflect that.”
While the department continues to revise its proposal, the state Legislature is working on its own version of Ag-to-Urban.
Senate President Pro Tempore T.J. Shope’s Senate Bill 1611 would also allow farmers to trade water rights for credits and sell irrigated land to developers, though it would apply to the Tucson active management area as well.
That bill is set to be heard on the Senate floor any day now, as it passed out of the Senate Committee on Natural Resources last week with only Republican support.
“I've received an outpour of support from Republicans and Democrats alike, and I'm calling on Governor Hobbs to join the movement by allowing ag-to-urban developments to take shape in Arizona to secure our water future and help hardworking Arizonans achieve their American dream of homeownership,” Shope said in a press release.
Hobbs, who vetoed a similar version of the bill last year, didn’t reply for a request for comment on the new bill and the department’s proposal.
It’s unclear if Shope, a Republican from Coolidge, collaborated with the department on the bill, or if the department will find another legislator to sponsor their version as a bill in the future. Neither party responded to requests for comment.
The department is asking for feedback on the draft proposal by March 5, and will hold another stakeholder meeting on March 12. It’s unclear when the proposal will be finalized.