USA: Water crisis in the state of Arizona

Climate change combined with indiscriminate drilling of wells has left an area of ​​5,200 square kilometers in Arizona without running water.

The Riverview Company has dug numerous wells in Arizona over the past six years. Photo: Guardian. Cynthia Beltran arrives in Sunizona, the center of Cochise County in the state of Arizona, USA in the fall of 2020. Although the area lacks potable water, Beltran can’t do anything because of financial constraints. Also due to lack of money, she accepted to manage 100 USD a week to buy water, instead of spending 15,000 USD to deepen the existing well in the new apartment. With a man with only a part-time job, Beltran soon surrendered to the $100-a-week payment and was forced to live with the help of his neighbors. “I’ve run out of options,” she said. Beltran is not the only case of the Willcox basin, which is about 5,200 square kilometers in Arizona. According to the state Department of Water Resources (ADWR), 78 wells dug between 2015 and 2019 have dried up. This number could increase to 100 in a few months. Several homes in Sunizona have been abandoned because the owners cannot afford to deepen an existing well or dig a new one. However, even with the ability to pay, there is no guarantee the drilling will be successful. Sunizona residents attribute the situation to the fact that Riverview, based in Minnesota, began digging wells with depths of 300-800 meters. They’ve been doing this since the beginning of 2015, and they’re causing the groundwater level to drop more and more. Riverview is not the first well drilling company in Sunizona, but they are the largest and deepest digging organization. Within 5 years, from January 2015 to November 2020, the number of wells in the area increased from 494 to 898. Kevin Wulf, a spokesman for Riverview, acknowledged the impact of the increase in the number of wells but believes it is not the only cause. “It is rumored that we came to dry the valley, then left. But no way, we do.” There is no question that Riverview changed the economic landscape of the Willcox Basin in just a few years. The company turned this place into an economic center thanks to the dairy farming and trading industry. They spent $38 million to buy Coronado dairy cows and bid for 2,600 hectares of land in the Kansas Settlement, north of Sunizona, on the day they started their business. To date, the company has spent about $180 million more to own more than 20,000 hectares of land, mostly agricultural land. The size of the company’s cow herd is estimated at about 150,000 cows. Sources close to Riverview say that the parent company prefers to invest in Arizona because the natural and climatic conditions are similar to the California valley where they have been successful. In addition, in this western state, there is no law regulating the amount of water pumped by each farmer household. “The Willcox Basin is the Wild West. The water there is free to use without any strings attached. As long as you have money to drill a well, you have water and no other planning or reporting,” said Kristine Uhlman, a retired hydrologist at the University of Arizona. Surrounded by five mountain ranges, the aquifer of the Willcox Basin is abundant. Before large-scale agricultural pumping started around 1940, the aquifers there had enough water to service Tucson, the nearest major city at the time, for 970 years, ADWR reports. Unlike the Southwest, the saline part of the aquifer of the Willcox Basin is only about 30 meters, and most of it is fresh water below. Uhlman says that in some areas, groundwater can be several kilometers above the surface. Because of this speculation, the Riverview Company and water-starved farmers have been descending into the valley for about a decade. However, due to lack of management, from 1940 to 2015, the groundwater level here decreased from 60 to 90 meters compared to the pre-development level. A retired ADWR official said the rate of decline increased from 0.6-1.2 meters a year before 2015 to 0.9-1.5 meters a year after 2015, when Riverview arrived. business. A water well in Arizona has risen by nearly 1 meter due to drought. Photo: AZ. According to an independent study by ADWR, Riverview drilled about 21% of the 315 new wells between January 2015 and October 2019. Specific numbers were not disclosed, but Riverview spokesman Wulf said: “Our total water usage is carefully monitored internally. We support state law that requires the measurement of all rural wells. This proposal has stalled in recent years, because of objections from other farmers.” Riverview’s claim to reduce water use causes a lot of skepticism. Two veteran local farmers, Joe Salvail and John Hart, say that while many residents have left their homes due to lack of water, Riverview has ramped up off-season planting, maintaining a two-crop-a-year rate. These factors increase the total amount of water used. In 2015, a group of farmers, ranchers, and government officials proposed the installation of meters on wells. Even so, the plan has created deep divisions within the community and the state legislature. “The leaders back then had no say. Almost no one wants to talk about it anymore,” Hart said. The prospect of Sunizona in particular and Arizona in general, in the long term, is forecasted to be bleak. According to ADWR research, if pumping levels are kept at the current level, water levels will drop by as much as 280 meters in the Kansas Settlement by 2115, compared with 1940 levels. According to the agency, most of the water remains in the strata The reservoir will be so deep that it will be almost impossible to pump up. “The reality is Riverview is drawing water from the bottom. It’s like when you suck water from a bucket, you’ll have water until it’s empty. While people with shorter straws, they get nothing.” hydrologist Uhlman commented. In addition to the state of Arizona, the US also issued an urgent notice about the risk of water shortage in the state of Nevada. The main reason, according to the US Bureau of Reclamation, is climate change causing less snow and ice to flow into lakes and rivers. In addition, hotter temperatures dry the soil, causing more river water to evaporate as it flows through the drought-stricken western United States.