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CONSEQUENCES

Severe Consequences of Failure To Act

The Prescott Active Management Area faces a future water shortage. Unless community leaders act to reduce and eventually eliminate the overdraft of our aquifer, the consequences will be severe. See Growth Harms the Aquifer.

  • Domestic wells on the edges of the aquifer face the most immediate problems. Family wells on the edges of the aquifer are already drying up, and many more will follow. When a domestic well goes dry, families are forced to haul water, their landscaping dries up, and their property values can be cut in half. See Family Wells Threatened and Has Your Well Gone Dry?
  • Municipal water suppliers will be among the last groups to experience water shortages. However, California has enforced water rationing and increased the cost of water.
  • As water levels in our aquifer continue to fall, water quality for all users will decline due to growing arsenic contamination.
  • Already, overdraft levels are causing a reduction in the base flow of the upper Verde River. With continued overdrafts, the river will dry up resulting in destruction of wildlife habitat, fewer recreation opportunities, and the potential loss of over $300 million in river-related economic activity.

The time for action is now. If massive population growth is allowed to increase groundwater pumping and if the overdraft is not reduced, our children and grandchildren will live with the consequences of a long-term water shortage. 

For a summary of the threats to our water supply see this article.

Join the Citizens Water Advocacy Group and help us meet the challenge!

Updated February 7,2021 

DAILY DROPLET

  • "Ranchers need clean water for their stock, farmers need it for their crops, every employer needs it to stay in business, and every living thing needs it for life... The law needs to be clear to protect water quality and the rights of landowners."
    Mark Udall

  • "Water is the driver of Nature."
    Leonardo da Vinci

  • "When the well is dry, we know the worth of water."
    Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1746

  • "...and since flow of information is to spirit what water is to life, we'd best think about how to keep the pipes free and unclogged."
    Raphie Frank

  • "In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference."
    Rachel Carson

  • "We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one."
    Jacques Yves Cousteau

  • "Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water."
    Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, 1937 Nobel Prize for Medicine

  • "Water is everywhere and in all living things; we cannot be separated from water. No water, no life. Period..."
    Robert Fulghum

  • "It's the water. Everything is driven by the water."
    Mike Thompson

  • "Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over."
    Mark Twain