MOHAVE COUNTY — Future water supply concern was a key issue addressed by the Kingman City Council during a special Jan. 13 meeting. The special session was conducted just four days after a judge in Phoenix struck down the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) 2022 designation of the Hualapai Valley Groundwater basin as an Irrigation Non-Expansion Area (INA).
The INA is a mechanism to prevent expansion of agricultural acreage over the supply-challenged basin that Kingman relies upon.
City Manager Tim Walsh and Mohave County Board of Supervisors Chairman Travis Lingenfelter, the day after the ruling, said they would engage legal counsel and the ADWR to determine next steps, possibly involving an appeal and request for stay of the order.
“We have no comment,” said Shauna Evans, Public Information Officer with ADWR.
Participating in the meeting by ZOOM, Tom Dorn, the city’s contract state legislative lobbyist, was asked for guidance as Kingman officials huddled up at city hall on Jan. 13.
“I think we should probably talk to the Governor’s office about this…and get their take on it,” said Dorn. “I mean, if the Governor is going to work on an AMA for La Paz county, it’s kind of a perfect opportunity for us to say there’s the rest of northwest Arizona. We have the issue now with this ruling, and see what they say.”
Zorn asked Walsh if the City would like him to try to facilitate communication involving the Governor’s office and ADWR.
“Absolutely, if you could set something up that would be very helpful,’’ Walsh said.
Meantime, Jack Ehrhardt and J’aime MorgAine, Co-Founders of the Sustainable Ground Water PAC, affirm their 2022 position that ADWR should have designated the basin as a more restrictive Active Management Area (AMA) rather than the INA, which mostly only checks farming expansion.
“Every single piece of evidence submitted to the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) actually supported the need for an AMA, a fact that should have legally resulted in ADWR Director Buschatzke’s designation of the basin as an AMA, not an INA,” the PAC said in a press release.
Anticipating another round of debate regarding how much water is in the basin and how rapidly it’s being depleted, Vice Mayor Cherish Sammeli expressed hope that answers to those questions can be better measured going forward. The 2022 INA designation was based in part by data put into a model, while INA critics questioned the calculations as guess work, rather than science.
“I feel like the modeling is good but there’s no check and balance to it. So, if we have some kind of alternative method, or we start discussing what other technologies are out there. Maybe we come to find out that the truth is a hybrid,” Sammeli said. “It if proves that the modeling is altruistic, then so be it. But if it contradicts it or if we can get more specific with the new technologies that are out there, then why not?”
