Arizona’s groundwater fights rarely end cleanly. They grind on in courts and at the Capitol, in rulemakings and in basins where neighbors disagree about water equity and availability. Disagreements amplified in 2023, when state regulators stopped approving new groundwater-reliant subdivisions around Phoenix. Since then, homebuilders, farmers, cities, and rural communities have all been pulling in different directions. Meanwhile, Colorado River shortages loom over everything, and all signs point to increasing water costs. Progress, when it comes, is slow and hard-won.
But difficulty is different from futility. We’ve solved big water problems before—and the way we’ve solved them tells us something about what tends to last.
Consider the Groundwater Management Act of 1980. It’s easy to treat the Act, which created Active Management Areas and the Assured Water Supply Program, as a permanent feature of Arizona water law. It’s also easy to forget how contentious it was at the time. The Act only emerged under sustained pressure, including federal threats to Central Arizona Project funding, and after months of grueling negotiations between cities, farmers, and mines. No one walked away completely satisfied. That was the point. More than four decades later, the Act remains a backbone of Arizona water law—durable precisely because it was forged through compromise rather than imposed by a single interest.
The recent Ag-to-Urban program follows the same playbook. The concept is simple: create housing and conserve groundwater by letting farmers in certain areas retire irrigated land and pledge part of their irrigation water to new development. Getting there was not simple. It took years of negotiation, a vetoed first attempt, and a deliberate merger of two competing visions: one centered on conservation, the other on housing. But the result passed with broad bipartisan support in 2025 and drew an unusually wide coalition, including developers, farmers, water providers, tribal leaders, and legislators from both major parties.
This most recent session, lawmakers returned to refine the program. A 2026 amendment (SB 1335) added a “temporary permit to irrigate with groundwater,” to allow farmers to keep farming during the gap between relinquishing an irrigation right and the start of development. That willingness to revisit and adjust the program suggests a living framework, not a one-time fix.
This collaboration is exactly why Ag-to-Urban is likely to endure. Laws assembled with broad stakeholder buy-in (and refined when they need adjusting) are far harder to unwind than measures forced through by a narrow majority. People are loathe to tear down something they helped build.
None of this means that we’re done fighting over groundwater. We may never be. But Ag-to-Urban is a reminder that Arizona still knows how to do hard things the right way: staying at the table until a deal holds. And that is reason for optimism.
Author: Sean Krieg is an attorney at Gammagec & Burnham who brings a practical, solutions-oriented approach to issues that shape Arizona’s future. His work centers on Water Law, Government Relations, Land Use, and Administrative Law, where he helps municipalities, non-profits, developers, and Indigenous Tribes navigate complex regulatory frameworks and policy challenges. Sean is dedicated to helping clients achieve balanced outcomes that advance both economic vitality and long-term sustainability.
