New Arizona drought plan would put Pinal farmers back on groundwater
by Tony Davis | Arizona Daily Star
A new plan to deal with less Colorado River water being available for Arizona would give Pinal County farmers the same amount of water as previous plans – but with much of it in groundwater.
The plan also would find new ways to provide backup, “mitigation” water for farms and other water users without taking hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of water from Lake Mead that had been proposed in previous plans – water that had been deliberately left in the lake to raise its elevation.
Those two ideas were centerpieces of a new Drought Contingency Plan, presented by the Arizona Department of Water Resources Thursday at a meeting of an advisory committee. The committee represents many key water interest groups – cities, farms, developers, tribes and ranchers.
