Need a well? If you live in Arizona, get in line. Just ask Ralph Anderson of Beeman Drilling.
“It’s going to be at least ninth months, just to get on the schedule," said Anderson.
Arizona Beeman Drilling is one of the largest well drilling companies in the state, responsible for about 75 percent to 80 percent of all the production wells.
Anderson stands next to a rig 60 feet high and capable of drilling a well 2,000 feet deep. It once occupied an oil field, but now sits in a neighborhood outside Phoenix in search of the desert’s most valuable resource: water.
At this particular drill site, they are putting the final touches on a well, about a thousand feet deep, that will eventually make its way into the taps of Valley residents. Dirty water spills through a metal grate, known as a shale shake.
Anderson has a smile on his face.
“Makes me happy when you look at water coming out that you know it’s going to be pure blue water here in a few minutes,” he said.
That is not the only reason Anderson is feeling good. Business is booming. Some companies are sending him deposits of close to a million dollars just to save their spot in line for a well. Demand has rebounded to what it was before the recession hit, said Anderson.
“It’s been about a four- to five-year recovery, but now because of the drought in California that stripped away a lot of the drill rigs," Anderson said.
That leaves people like Anderson in Arizona holding the bag. Many cities and water companies are trying to beef up their well infrastructure, but the industry has flocked to California’s Central Valley. Finding enough trained drillers has been a real challenge for Anderson lately.
“They’re roughnecks and they’re in danger all the time," he said, "There’s 30-foot pieces of steel that weigh 8,000 pounds that are being lifted 40 feet above their heads. ”
Luis Balderama is one of those roughnecks. He was cooling down in the “dog house,” a trailer with all the equipment and drilling plans.
Friends will ask him about getting into the business. “But not just anyone wants to jump in," said Balderama. "They know it’s hard work.”
The work is difficult, but vital. These drillers hold the keys to Arizona’s "drought insurance policy." Unlike California, where groundwater was unregulated until recently, pumping has been restricted in the most populated areas of the state for decades — and for good reason. If the Lake Mead reservoir near Las Vegas sinks too low, Arizona is one of the first to face cutbacks and will lose more than any other state in the southwest.
“The fact that we knew we were at a risk of shortage put us on notice,” said Rita Maguire, who is a water attorney and the former head of the Arizona Department of Water Resources. While this junior water rights status can be a sore subject, Maguire said there’s a silver lining: Arizona has stashed huge amounts of water underground for times of drought.
“I call it our IRA account," said Maguire. "Put money away for, not the rainy day, but, in our case, the very dry days, as we’re seeing now.”
That is where the wells drillers come into play. They make those withdrawals not just for cities, but for the farmers in places such as central Arizona, where the situation is especially urgent.
Brian Betcher manages the Maricopa-Stanfield Irrigation and Drainage District, south of Phoenix. His growers rely on water piped in from the Colorado River via the Central Arizona Project and much of that could get cut back in 2017, meaning Betcher has to get his wells in order.
“There are only a few people that are expert enough to do repairs to old wells. So, you have to grab them when they’re available," said Betcher.
Arizona has about 9 million acre feet of water banked away underground — that’s how much residents in the Phoenix metro area use in close to a decade.
Given all that water and the growing demand, Ralph Anderson expects his drill company will be busy for years to come.
“We’re looking at water being our lifeblood. It’s something we can never get enough of,” Anderson said.
Although he is the one putting the straw into this hard, desert ground, Anderson sees himself as a protector of this prized and finite resource.
