Farming big factor in Arizona's water supply of 'Sun Corridor'

Pima, Pinal and Maricopa counties have enough water to support nearly 4.3 million more people - if we get rid of all commercial farming, a new report says. The report, from an Arizona State University-based think tank, concluded the region's water supply can support significantly less population growth than many experts had previously estimated. But it still said that what's become known as the "Sun Corridor" will not run out of water, although "it faces serious challenges about how to strike the right balance between population growth and lifestyle." The Sun Corridor is essentially a planner's vision of what the urban areas of Southern and Central Arizona will be like over the next half-century. When the Sun Corridor vision surfaced in the mid-2000s, experts were predicting the three counties' population would reach 10.1 million by 2040. Now, with the financial crisis having reduced the region's economic expectations, a population of about 9 million by 2040, versus 5.2 million today, is most likely, the report said. The report said that despite Arizona's reputation as a state too arid to support a large population, its officials have achieved many water successes. They include building an extensive network of reservoirs and other water-storage facilities, and the conservation and reuse of water. At the same time, drought, climate change and regional growth patterns "suggest that the future could be far from normal for all parts of the Sun Corridor," the report said. People may face a choice of whether "to give up the right to a backyard pool so that we can have a more reliable supply, or maintain local agriculture, or support natural ecosystems, or allow more people to move into the Sun Corridor," said the report from ASU's Morrison Institute for Public Policy. It calls itself a nonpartisan center for research and public outreach. Many factors considered Researchers considered a long list of factors affecting water supplies and use before concluding the region's water savings are starting to look shallow. Those factors included the large amounts of water stored in reservoirs, the prospects for climate-change-induced drought and the increasing tendency to believe that groundwater should not be used. Looking to 2060 and beyond, the growth of population and urban water demand means the margin between water supply and use becomes troubling, the report says. "So does the Sun Corridor have enough water for the future? Does your family have enough water for the future? The answer to these questions is the same: It all depends." For years, many water experts have predicted population growth would eventually crowd out agriculture across the West and take most of the water that farmers use. Indeed, the Arizona Groundwater Management Act, passed in 1980, made the eventual replacement of farms with cities a key part of a long-term strategy to bring the region's water supply and demand into balance while still allowing population growth. But while farming has declined in all three Sun Corridor counties, it remains the majority user of the region's water supplies, the report said. Statewide, more than 70 percent of the total water supply goes to farms, the report said. This state, unlike many other state and local governments, has no official policy to preserve farmland except in agricultural Pinal County. In fact, "in recent years, agriculture has existed as a kind of holding zone - something to be done with land until it is urbanized," the report said.

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