Grand Canyon Times

A bill State Rep. John Kavanagh introduced in January that would have required groundwater pumping in rural areas to be measured by the state’s top water regulator is dead in the water.

"It didn't get a committee hearing," State Rep. Kavanaugh told the Grand Canyon Times. "I'll introduce it again to keep the conversation going but there won't be action by stakeholders until there's a wake up call like fissures across the highway."

Change is critical to begin addressing problems of excessive pumping in rural parts of the state where there are no rules limiting how much water is extracted from the ground, according to Kavanaugh. 

"The economic impact is that people will come to the state for money to drill wells and do more pumping but there's no new water so I guess they will pump until it runs dry or until someone says to stop," Kavanaugh said in a telephone interview.

But the danger there is depletion.

"When the water's depleted, people's wells dry up," he said. "Then they don't drink water or take baths and their homes are worthless. The value of their home declines."

The culprit, according to media reports, is unregulated pumping by expanding farms.

"People who object to a reduction in pumping groundwater claim there's not enough information to justify cutbacks but the information needed cannot be presented until the water being pumped is measured," Kavanaugh said. "If, in fact, the levels are low, it would trigger a cutback in pumping. Without measuring, I suspect that there will be some dramatic sign of the depletion of aquifers. We had it 20 years ago when fissures opened up in the ground."