Keeping Pinal County agriculture alive as federal deadline for drought plan nears
by Phil Riske | Rose Law Group Reporter
House Speaker Rusty Bowers speaks to a drought contingency bill package he introduced in committee on Tuesday./Screen shot by Phil Riske
Numerous witnesses with a stake in a proposed drought contingency plan testified to what they say will be dire consequences if Pinal County doesn’t receive enough water from the Colorado River and from groundwater over the coming years. The federal Bureau of Reclamation, gave the seven Colorado River basin states — Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming — until January 31 to agree on a joint Drought Contingency Plan. If they do not, the federal government will come up with its own plan.
Water shortage would shake the entire Pinal County economy, from the cost of food to the tax base.
Pinal County provides 63 percent of food and fiber in Arizona and beyond. Relying on less water is one thing, but if Pinal County is left in the lurch by the plan, 30%-40% of its crops could go fallow for a 2.3 billion loss of income to the Pinal economy.
“Your steak at Safeway will no longer be four dollars,” Chelsea McGuire of the Arizona Farm Bureau Federation told a House committee Wednesday as it debated a package of bills the Legislature hopes will satisfy the federal government mandate for a drought plan to deal with the slowly evaporating Colorado River.
