As state legislators continue to work towards a budget agreement, it is critical to remind your legislators that adequate funding to protect Arizona’s precious water resources should be among their top budget priorities for the upcoming fiscal year.
This means:- $18 million for the Water Quality Assurance Revolving Fund, administered by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) to clean up contaminated groundwater sites across Arizona.
- $10 million to attract, hire, and retain water professionals at the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR). We must adequately fund the department so that they can carry out their critical duties to monitor and protect our water.
- $3 million to assess rural groundwater basins: ADWR needs to create groundwater models for six “at risk” groundwater basins in the state so that the data is available for potential management action.
- $1.5 million to advance the General Stream Adjudications: This long-running lawsuit to determine who has the right to how much water needs funding to add a full time Superior Court judge devoted to this important work, and additional ADWR technical staff to advise the court.
- $1 million to support ADEQ to establish a stakeholder process and develop a “Waters of Arizona” program in order to protect the 93 percent of rivers, lakes, and streams that are losing Clean Water Act protections under the Trump Administration’s recent action to remove protections on waterways that don’t flow year-round.
We must protect our water resources—for birds, fish, other wildlife, and people—and proper funding of these departments and programs is critical to ensuring we have sustainable water supplies into the future. |
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