PHOENIX — Arizona officials announced Thursday the state will no longer grant certifications for new developments within the Phoenix area, as groundwater rapidly disappears amid years of water overuse and climate change-driven drought.
A new study showed that the groundwater supporting the Phoenix area likely can’t meet additional development demand in the coming century, officials said at a news conference. Gov. Katie Hobbs and the state’s top water officials outlined the results of the study looking at groundwater demand within the Phoenix metro area, which is regulated by a state law that tries to ensure Arizona’s housing developments, businesses and farms are not using more groundwater than is being replaced.
The study found that around 4% of the area’s demand for groundwater, close to 4.9 million acre-feet, cannot be met over the next 100 years under current conditions – a huge shortage that will have significant implications for housing developments in the coming years in the booming Phoenix metro area, which has led the nation in population growth.
State officials said the announcement wouldn’t impact currently approved developments. However, developers that are seeking to build new developments will have to demonstrate they can provide an assured water supply for 100 years using water from a source that is not local groundwater.
"Homes can't be built in the greater Phoenix area unless the developer proves a 100-year supply of water. Of course, there are people who are planning to develop new subdivisions and the places where most of that is occurring are on the far east and far west sides of the Valley. Buckeye and Queen Creek are places where that kind of development is occurring," said Sarah Porter, with the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. "For subdivisions that don't already have the certification that they have the water supply, those plans, subdivisions, those developers will have to go find different water supplies in order to build.”
