Will Arizona Save Its Groundwater Before It’s Gone for Good?

Ed Curry has been farming chile peppers in Arizona’s arid southeastern corner for 54 years. Over decades, he’s kept tabs on local groundwater levels, monitored his wells for declines, and done his best to conserve across his 2,000 acres. His father, also a farmer in Cochise County, did the same.

But, until very recently, that diligence wasn’t mandatory. When it was passed, the state’s 1980 Groundwater Management Act focused on urban centers—and for cities, it worked well, reducing water demand as population grew. Yet the law left about 80 percent of the state unregulated: Across nearly all of Arizona’s rural land, anyone could drill a well and pump as much water as they’d like, without even measuring their use.

Around eight years ago, as large out-of-state farms and dairies began operating in his area, Curry noticed that even wells he wasn’t using were losing water. In the absence of guard rails preventing unfettered pumping, the Willcox groundwater basin that Curry’s farm draws from has recently been losing roughly 54,000 Olympic swimming pools of groundwater volume a year. To cope, Curry spent $600,000 drilling deeper wells in 2023. Every farmer he knows has had to do the same: “There’s not one single person that’s not dealing with this,” he says. As land subsides and shifts, the area is also seeing damage to infrastructure and homes. 

Arizonans across the state are facing rapidly declining groundwater. Many officials, lawmakers, residents, and conservation advocates say stemming the loss is urgent for communities—and wildlife, too. In 2025, the Arizona Department of Water Resources took an unprecedented step to declare the Willcox groundwater basin a new “active management area” (AMA) under the 1980 water law. The designation requires that large groundwater consumers in Curry’s part of Arizona report their use, prohibits drilling large new wells and the expansion of irrigated farmland, and sets goals to cut withdrawals over time.

Many now want to see that momentum spread statewide. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers recently introduced bills that would end Arizona’s era of unlimited groundwater extraction. While their details and targets differ, both proposals would help slow declines in rural areas, and importantly, offer residents more flexibility and input than the current law allows. The Willcox basin AMA, for example, limits farmers’ ability to trade water rights, and its formulas are tougher on those who have already cut back.

Statewide legislation is not only crucial for communities, but also for birds and other wildlife, says Haley Paul, Arizona policy director for Audubon Southwest. Groundwater losses imperil the state’s few rivers and crucial pockets of riparian forest that many species, like Yellow Warblers and Western Tanagers, depend upon for insects, nesting sites, shade, and seeds. “These ribbons of green, these groundwater-fed ecosystems, are really, really important in an arid environment,” Paul says.

For example, just west of the Willcox Basin, groundwater levels beneath the San Pedro River are falling with increased pumping in the watershed. Consequently, the river’s baseflow—the portion of water that seeps up from the ground—is dwindling in many stretches. If groundwater drops more than 6.5 feet below the surface, then cottonwood and willow tree roots can’t reliably reach water, says riparian ecologist Davit Merritt. As trees die off, invasive shrubs like salt cedar move in. “That causes a big collapse,” says Merritt. The degraded ecosystem can’t support the same rainbow of birdlife.

Inaction risks even more irreversible damage. When underground basins that took millennia to fill with surface water are quickly overdrawn, soil can compact and collapse, permanently reducing the Earth’s capacity to hold liquid. Groundwater is a “lifeline,” says Emily LoDolce, a hydrologist at ADWR. “Once it’s gone, it’s really hard to get back.”

Without a sustainable water policy, Curry foresees a future where water becomes commodified, and farming and living becomes increasingly difficult in his home state.  More than 40 percent of Arizona’s total water supply currently comes from underground, and meanwhile, climate change and human interference are also putting pressure on surface sources, like the Colorado River, too.

Curry now regularly drives hours to Phoenix to testify before lawmakers. But proposed bills have failed in the past, and with the state’s legislature and governorship split between parties, any hope of success rests on what can be difficult bipartisan compromise. Advocates say a sustainable future requires tough choices: “It can’t always be, ‘it’s my water and to hell with everybody else.’ No, it’s all our water and we’ve got to figure it out,” Curry says. “I want water and food 100 years from now.”

This story ran in the Summer 2025 issue as “Ground Rules.” To receive our print magazine, become a member by making a donation today.