Active Management Areas — known as AMAs — impose restrictions on water pumping.
The 1980 Groundwater Management Act established Arizona’s first four AMAs — Phoenix, Prescott, Tucson and Pinal. The fifth AMA (Santa Cruz) was made from a portion of the Tucson AMA in 1994.
Until 2022, those were Arizona’s only groundwater protection areas.
In 2022, voters in the Douglas area passed a measure to establish the sixth AMA.
In that same election, Willcox area voters rejected a similar proposal. But Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ administration created an AMA in the Willcox basin in 2024.
That was the first time in state history the executive branch made an AMA, and the process is not without controversy.
Agriculture officials and state Republicans accused Hobbs of overstepping by establishing water rules through ADWR instead of state law.
Both Republicans and Democrats agree that the AMA model is not well suited to rural areas, like the Ranegras Plain Basin.
However, Arizona’s water agency is taking the first step toward establishing groundwater protections there in La Paz County, where water levels are dropping rapidly.
The state Department of Water Resources on Nov. 6 issued a Notice of Initiation of Designation Procedures — the official start of the process to make a new AMA in western Arizona.
In 2023, ADWR presented information on three basins of concern, based on aquifer data a few years ago. They were Willcox, Ranegras Plain and Gila Bend.
ADWR focused on Willcox first and is now in process with Ranegras Plain, but the fate of Gila Bend is unclear.
“In Gila Bend, we also held an informal meeting to let folks know about the state of overdraft in the basin and we also answered questions that folks had out there,” Bryce said. “I know there's been some continued conversations that folks out there have had about an AMA. As of right now, we have not initiated proceedings to designate an AMA in the Gila Bend Basin.”
Elected officials have struggled to come to an agreement on legislation for alternative rural management areas for the past few years.
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