January 2009
U.S. Water News Online
PHOENIX — The Arizona Department of Water Resources has decided that water tapped from the Big Chino aquifer will count toward the Prescott area's 100-year assured water supply.
Without that decision, the costly import plan would have lost its value toward meeting state-mandated water rules.
At stake are future water sources for both Prescott, which would build a pipeline to use the Big Chino groundwater, and Phoenix, whose Verde River supplies already are threatened by wells in rural Yavapai County.
The plan has stirred opposition from a Phoenix water provider, environmental groups and some Prescott residents.
Several have already filed appeals of the state decision, and it's likely one or more of those foes will sue Prescott to block or alter the project.
The state agency said Salt River Project, the Phoenix metropolitan area's largest water supplier, did not qualify as a resident of the affected area and could not continue to appeal decisions on the aquifer case.
SRP, which delivers Verde River water to Phoenix customers, says that the Prescott plan threatens the river's flow and that the giant utility is prepared to sue. Officials suggest Prescott needs to shore up its 100-year assured water supply to comply with Arizona groundwater laws.
The state declared several years ago that the Prescott area was not meeting requirements to balance the water used with water returned to local aquifers. In late 2004, Prescott proposed to draw water from the Big Chino aquifer, an ambitious plan whose estimated price tag has ballooned to more than $200 million.
Prescott partnered with Prescott Valley to share costs, and the two cities purchased a ranch on the Big Chino and started looking for ways to pay for the 30-mile pipeline.
The pipeline could deliver as much as 3 billion gallons a year — water that would meet the 100-year supply rule as a result of last month's state water agency ruling.
Environmentalists objected immediately, producing geologic studies that said a well field as big as Prescott proposed could reduce the flow of the upper Verde River, which bubbles up from springs at the base of the Big Chino.
The conservation groups were joined by SRP, which argued that the wells and pipeline would rob its Phoenix-area customers of water from the Verde.
But state officials decided the law in the case allowed for no such link.