But for now, some cities and the state have a different plan: spend what it takes to find the water to continue growing. Some experts have cautioned that cities like Buckeye need to reevaluate plans for growth as Arizona continues to deal with the challenges of drought and climate change in the Southwest. Communities are preparing to spend billions of dollars to find new sources of water and build the infrastructure needed to deliver it to users. It’s an approach policymakers throughout Arizona are increasingly taking as the state looks to address declining water deliveries from the Colorado River and depleted groundwater supplies. Please take a look at the new openings in our newsroom. Those new homes, he said, will lead to new residents and businesses that will help pay to find new sources of water. “Growth pays for growth,” he said in an interview. The city’s mayor, Eric Orsborn, isn’t worried about a shortage of water, or of the money to pay for it, slowing down what Buckeye has planned. The water from the Harquahala will supply about 20,000 homes planned for development in the city 35 miles west of Phoenix-just a small fraction of the more than 100,000 homes developers plan to build there-and its price doesn’t include what it will cost to treat the water to be drinkable or get it to homes in Buckeye. It would need to find another source before the Arizona Department of Water Resources would issue certificates allowing developers to continue building, the report said. Queen Creek, a fast-growing town east of Phoenix in Maricopa and Pinal counties, struck a similar deal with the same company last year for $30 million.īuckeye’s purchase, which allows it to pump 5,926 acre-feet of water per year for the next 100 years, came weeks after Arizona’s new governor released a report saying the basin the city sits on didn’t have enough water for all its planned growth. In January, Buckeye, one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities, with plans to triple its population in the coming decades, agreed to pay $80 million for one acre of land in the Harquahala Basin to acquire the water rights attached to it. It’s one of three basins in the state where groundwater can be pumped out and sent elsewhere-if cities are willing to pay the price. BUCKEYE, Ariz.-Sixty miles west of Phoenix along the I-10 freeway to the California border lies what many Valley cities with limited water supplies and investment companies see as an answer to helping solve Arizona’s water woes: the Harquahala Basin.
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