The state announced it was beginning the process to regulate groundwater in Willcox, where industrial farming has drained the aquifer, a big step to reign in the overconsumption of underground water supplies in rural Arizona, as Wyatt Myskow writes for Inside Climate News.
The Arizona Department of Water Resources announced Wednesday that, for the first time ever, it was beginning the process of creating an Active Management Area within the boundaries of the Willcox groundwater basin, setting the stage to finally regulate groundwater in the region where dozens of wells have run dry over the past decade.
Over the past decade, Willcox residents have seen large-scale agricultural operations move into the area, where no groundwater regulations exist, allowing unlimited quantities of water to be pumped for free, but at the cost of their aquifer.
