Gallego, Sundareshan, and Gabaldón Call Out the Danger to Water Security in Arizona and Across the Southwest

In two social media publications today (August 25,) Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, Arizona Senate Democratic Leader Priya Sundareshan, and Ranking Senate Natural Resources Committee Member Rosanna Gabaldon called out the dangers to water security in the Grand Canyon state and across the Southwest.

They also warned that inaction, putting corporate interests over water security, and reactionary science denialism/sticking heads in the sand were not options in moving forward to address this crisis.

In an op-ed written published by AZ Central with joint contributions from Chad Franke, Tom Kiernan and Manuel Heart, Mayor Gallego called attention to the scarcity dangers from the decreasing water supply from the Colorado River, saying that the situation “is at a perilous tipping point.”

Noting that the Colorado River “provides water for more than 35 million people, hydropower, millions of acres of farms and ranchland, and key environmental resources, while also supporting more than a $1 trillion economy and serving as home to 30 federally recognized tribes…more than two decades of persistent drought, declining snowpack and rising temperatures, the Colorado River faces a historic and growing imbalance between water supply and demand.”

Calling for “unified action” from all stakeholders, including tribal, local, state, and regional government and water use entities, Gallego and the other contributors urge the same spirit that provided solutions to these water security dilemmas over the last 25 years, writing:

“We must proactively adjust our plans given the Colorado River’s changing water supply. We must confront the crisis with urgency and collaboration to build a workable water future for the broad network of Colorado River interests.   To succeed, comprehensive, forward-looking solutions must replace the current crisis-to-crisis management approach.”

“Solutions must be rooted in flexibility, innovation and cooperation — and acknowledge both the urgency of today’s water supply shortages and the need for long-term water reliability and resilience. Doing so will require the immediate development of durable agreements — not just between Upper and Lower Basin states, but also among the states, U.S. and tribes, and between the U.S. and Mexico — that re-balance water demands with the river’s shrinking supply.”

Gallego and the other contributors conclude with:

“We must work now to find the compromises that will avoid forcing us to litigate our way into uncertainty and instead collaborate our way to solutions that will chart a viable future for the Colorado River together.”

In a video published on social media sites, Senators Sundareshan and Gabaldon released the first part of a new water security series calling attention for the need to forge needed legislation based on the Rural Groundwater Act Governor Hobbs and the bipartisan group of interested parties unveiled last January.

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The Democratic Senate Leader had released a series of social media videos on the same topic and themes last June.

In this first episode, both Senators Sundareshan and Gabaldon called out Republican legislators for their obstructionism in not giving the Rural Groundwater Act a committee hearing and passing measures that favored corporate interests and profits over water security.

In her comments, Senator Sundareshan said:

“You might remember. I began the year with a very hopeful event. A bipartisan gathering with legislators and Republican elected officials, All of us together with Governor Hobbs to unveil the bill that we introduced this session to protect groundwater in rural Arizona. Well, here we are. Six months after that hopeful January event. And now, the 2025 legislative session has ended with no progress again on reaching an agreement to protect rural groundwater. Not only that, but Republicans introduced their bill this year that moved farther away from our negotiations and more towards protecting the big business that is already raking it in, cementing the status quo. And recently, the Arizona Republican Party post ted online, claiming that the only bills to protect domestic wells this year were vetoed by the Governor. That’s completely false. The Republicans only advanced bills that would create further exemptions in the water law without addressing the underlying problem. Our bills would have provided those solutions, but they never gave them a chance.”

In her remarks, Senator Gabaldon offered:

“Our bill SB1425, sponsored by Leader Sundareshan, took into account what we thought were good faith negotiations Democrats had with Republicans for more than a year…In District 21. We’ve had some very rural areas with both large farming operations as well as isolated communities. My constituents deserve to know that their wells will not run dry while they are living in their homes and at the same time they want to support farming appropriate for the area that maintains local jobs. As the ranking Democrat on the Senate Natural Resources Committee, I’m completely disappointed that the Republican Committee Chairs never even gave a hearing to those bipartisan bills to protect rural groundwater simply because they were sponsored by Democratic legislators. And the Republican committee chair in the House has even said their residents who move into rural areas should have known what they were getting into. Instead of doing anything to protect her own constituents, It really doesn’t feel like they wanted to get to any agreement at all. Arizona’s residents need their groundwater protected, but Republican legislators would rather protect big business profits than help keep our communities thriving. Time is running out for our state’s rural constituents, and we can’t afford to keep kicking the can down the road on protecting rural groundwater.”