COVID-19 stopped Arizona’s public groundwater debate – and just when it was getting good
Opinion: Public groundwater planning efforts have mostly ground to a halt, and just when the work was pivoting from fact-finding to solution-making.
A picture from the last Pinal Groundwater Task Force meeting on March 2, 2020 in Florence.
The clock is ticking for Arizona’s limited groundwater supply.
Aquifer levels are continuing to drop, some by alarming numbers. Slowing the drain will be costly, complex and take time to finalize – which means we have little time to sit on our hands.
Multiple local and statewide planning efforts were underway this spring, engaging folks from Kingman to Willcox.
But COVID-19 has shut down most of that work – meaning we’ve lost a few months of critical planning time that we don’t have. And just when the debate was starting to get good.
