Biggs says he may reverse some of Hobbs' groundwater conservation efforts

Congressman Andy Biggs said if he’s elected governor, he may reverse some of the groundwater protections incumbent Katie Hobbs has established.

As a Democrat working with a Republican-controlled state Legislature, Hobbs hasn’t gotten many proposals through in the form of bills. But, under her direction, the state water resources department has created two “active management areas” which are zones where groundwater pumping is restricted.

One AMA is in the Willcox basin in southern Arizona, and the other is in the Ranegras Plain basin in the western part of the state.

Biggs indicated he may get rid of them.

“We’ll have to see how they’re working,” he said Tuesday. “I mean she [Hobbs] has put in a new AMA down in Cochise County that I'm not sure is working well at all. We'll have to evaluate that very carefully.”

The Cochise County AMA refers to Willcox.

Residents of the Willcox area actually rejected a ballot measure to establish an AMA in 2022, but ADWR stepped in and created one unilaterally in 2024.

Biggs said protecting groundwater is a top priority but also said Arizona needs to pump more of it. He said the state has a water management issue rather than a supply issue.

Biggs wants to invest in new infrastructure to access more of the state’s groundwater supply.

“We have a lot of it, we’re going to make it useful. That means you gotta have the infrastructure and you’ve gotta have the management,” he said.

Arizona has a total of eight AMAs, most of which was established as part of the 1980 Groundwater Management Act. They’re really designed for urban areas, and both Phoenix and Tucson are in AMAs.

Democrats and Republicans agree that AMAs aren’t well suited to rural areas, and there should be a rural groundwater protection alternative.

However, the parties could not come to an agreement on what the rural AMA alternative should be. Former state Sen. Sine Kerr tried to pass a version of that plan with only Republican support, but it died.

Now, Kerr is running on a ticket with Biggs as his pick for lieutenant governor.

Kerr said Tuesday that she and Biggs will convene water experts in the state to “develop a long-term water strategy.”

Hobbs established the Governor’s Water Policy Council in her first month in office, which is composed of several water leaders and stakeholders, but that council is specifically designed to analyze and evaluate groundwater management.

Kerr was initially appointed to the council, but she quit in Oct. 2023, and said the council wasn’t taking agricultural interests into much consideration.