2015-02-03 Predictions of groundwater and river declines

Future water shortages in the southwestern U.S. have been a recent topic for discussion in the national news. Locally, Prescott and Prescott Valley are planning for the importation of groundwater from an area 30 miles to the north known as the Big Chino sub-basin (BC). Currently Prescott gets almost all of its water from wells located in Chino Valley (Little Chino sub-basin), where we are pumping far more than is sustainable. As our region continues to grow, the availability of water from the Chino Valley well field will decrease and the overdraft will grow.

Importing groundwater from the BC via an expensive pipeline could provide a short-term solution to a future water shortage, but we should ask about the long-term consequences of taking groundwater from one basin and transporting it to another. These consequences would include lowering the groundwater level in the BC, and decreasing the baseflow of the upper Verde River (baseflow is the groundwater- supplied component of streamflow).