Many of us have had this charming experience: Play hide and seek with a 4-year-old, and often the child will cover its own eyes, assuming that if she or he can’t see, then they can’t be seen.
This philosophy is a lot less charming when it forms the basis of rural water policy in Arizona.
Agriculture uses some 72% of the state’s precious water resources. Much of that use is unregulated and unmonitored. And the $23.3 billion industry likes it that way.
But many water experts in the state — including some rural leaders — understand that has to change.
Travis Lingenfelter, chair of the Mohave County Board of Supervisors, and Holly Irwin, his La Paz County counterpart, are among them.
As Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services reported, “It’s not about taking water from anybody,” Irwin said last week. “It’s trying to protect what we have in the aquifers.
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“Wells are going dry,” Irwin said. “That’s an indicator that something’s wrong, that we at least need to start taking a look at how much water’s being pumped out, and where.”
The remarks were in reaction to the fact that Arizona Farm Bureau Federation President Stefanie Smallhouse and state Sen. Sine Kerr of Buckeye decided to walk out of talks about rural water quantity problems in the state.
They were named to Gov. Katie Hobbs’ Water Policy Council, to which they had been invited to represent the perspective of rural water users. That perspective is largely — but not exclusively — agricultural.
Meanwhile, Rep. Gail Griffin of Sierra Vista, who remains on Hobbs’ council but is an ally of Kerr and Smallhouse, took exception to Lingenfelter’s assertion that she, Smallhouse and Kerr are “acting like small children who are not getting their way.”
Griffin said Hobbs’ council process is “extremely flawed,” and added, “When it is exposed, what do they do? Personal attacks.”
For his part, Lingenfelter was equally acerbic.
“The state of Arizona simply cannot allow one stakeholder group that uses 72% of Arizona’s water to produce 1.5% of Arizona’s GDP to continue to dominate the conversation on long-term security for our finite rural groundwater,” he said.
That’s hard to argue with, although Kerr tried, rejecting the measurement of agriculture’s contribution to the state in terms of GDP. Which is fair, but of course, misses the main point.
The Farm Bureau Federation and Smallhouse released a statement expressing “disappointment” in the “workings of the Rural Groundwater Committee of the Governor’s Water Policy Council,” saying the “current process has been deaf to the concerns and priorities of Arizona’s farm and ranch families, and we must withdraw from it entirely.”
The federation is correct in enumerating the many advantages and virtues of Arizona agriculture, and the organization’s efforts on behalf of its membership are commendable. But its call for a “new and innovative approach for the protection of water users” seems like code for rejecting everything about the current approach.
As Irwin points out, “We don’t even know what’s underneath the ground, yet we continue to allow for this massive pumping to continue without doing any modeling or hydrology studies.”
Walking away from these discussions is very much like not monitoring how much water is being pumped. It’s hiding your eyes and thinking the problem will disappear.
Hobbs deserves credit for creating a bipartisan council to tackle these tough issues, and it’s unfortunate that this move makes this issue feel much more partisan.
Water is not — or should not be — politics. Water is life. And Arizonans should know that better than just about anybody. (Indeed, indigenous Arizonans do: In Tohono O’odham, “Water is Life” is Su:dagi’o Wud T-Duakud, and in Yaqui: Va’am Yee Hiapsitua. Those words are taken seriously.)
The Arizona Farm Bureau Federation is “The Voice of Arizona Agriculture,” its website trumpets.
That voice should be at the table in this discussion, so key to the state’s future — not sniping from the sidelines.
These latest moves feel like another childish game — kick the can down the road. By the time the state’s water can is finally retrieved, it may well be empty.
