A partner with Governor Katie Hobbs and a strong advocate for sound water security that will provide consistent water supply, flow, and consumption for the next one hundred years, Arizona Democratic Senate Leader Priya Sundareshan hosted four short social media videos conveying the urgency and necessity to formalize a new management plan that will address the water needs of Grand Canyon State Residents for the next century and provide guardrails to protect the state from overconsumption.
In the first part of the video series, Senator Sundareshan said there was a need to safeguard the three sources of water for Arizona: The surface level supply, underground aquifers, and the Colorado River by modernizing and adapting the 1980 Arizona Groundwater Management Act, saying that failure to advance the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District Plan (GRD):
“Jeopardizes our confidence in securing water for existing residents in our urban areas, including some cities like Tucson. That’s why we need to be super careful when considering any legislation that would put extra burdens on the GRD to find more water supplies to support building more subdivisions. Because so many of us already rely on the GRD for our own water security, And we can’t afford to gamble that away.”
In part two, Senator Sundareshan repeated her warnings against corrupt corporate home construction interests influencing Republican Legislative leaders that seek to weaken any sound bipartisan water supply security measures, stating:
“Home builders don’t like being told no, or even apparently that they need to be careful with our shared Water Resources, they’ve managed to get Senate President, Peterson, and house Speaker Montenegro to go along with their dastardly plan to sue the Department of Water Resources, And in the process, they’re happy to take down our entire system of groundwater protections with them. Republicans and home builders are willing to scrap the basics of what it means to try to live with limited resources and to rip the foundation of our water security out from under us. These lawsuits are rough, and it shows that they’re not serious about ensuring that anyone can keep living in Arizona beyond the next decade.”
In part three, Senator Sundareshan recounted how she attended a bipartisan ceremony with Governor Katie Hobbs and other Democratic and Republican rural and urban officials that presented a solution to Arizona’s water supply security needs. Unfortunately, as the Democratic Senate Leader relayed:
“Well, here we are. A few months later, and that bill was never given a hearing by Republican committee chairs, and now the session is almost ended with no progress yet again. On reaching an agreement to protect rural groundwater, Not only that. But while our bill took into account our negotiations with Republicans over the past year, Republicans introduced a bill this year that moved farther towards protecting the big businesses that benefit from the status quo. How can we reach an agreement when they keep moving in the wrong direction? Arizona residents need their groundwater protected, but Republican legislators would rather protect big business profits than help keep our communities thriving.”
In the final part of the video series, Senator Sundareshan conveyed that future home and commercial development only makes sense if there is “true water savings.”
She also relayed that strong guardrails, as suggested by the Arizona Department of Water Resources, need to be instituted in any bipartisan water supply security plan, stating:
“It includes some important limitations like only allowing enough water that’s needed for efficient housing, requiring that land has to have been historically irrigated in order to participate and to do so in areas that have proved their solid water supplies for the next 100 years. If you don’t put these guardrails in place, then you could actually increase overall pumping and put everyone in the Phoenix, Pinal, and Tucson areas at risk. Your home value doesn’t look so good when there’s no water to access…”
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