By Joshua Partlow, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Isaac Stanley-Becker | Washington Post
There is not enough groundwater underneath the Phoenix metropolitan area to meet projected demands over the next century, a finding that could threaten the current home-building boom in outer suburbs that are among the fastest growing parts of the United States, according to an analysis of the groundwater supply released Thursday.
The report from the Arizona Department of Water Resources amounts to a chilling warning for the nation’s fifth-largest city and a metropolitan area with more than 5 million people that has been a development hot spot for new residents and high-tech businesses. In Phoenix’s peripheral areas, subdivisions have spread through the desert on a massive scale and hundreds of thousands more homes are planned.The studymeans that plans for future housing developments that rely solely on groundwater — in outlying areas that have not yet verified their long-term water supply — could not move forward.
And as the climate gets hotter and drier in the West, and major water sources such as the Colorado River diminish, dwindling supplies of groundwater as outlined in the new report could portenda vastly different future than the one residents in the Southwest have come to expect.
The long-awaited report,announced by Gov. Katie Hobbs (D), projects that about 4 percent of the demand for groundwater, or 4.9 million acre-feet of water, will not be met over the next 100 years without further action.
Rose Law Group Founder and President Jordan Rose: “This is not our first rodeo with water policy announcements. The state issued the exact same pronouncement relating to Pinal County a few years ago and we worked with them to find short and longer-term solutions. Remember this does nothing to stop our industrial or office growth and there are years of single family residential lot supply with water already secured available right now.”
