A bleached 'bathtub ring,' the result of a six-year drought that has dramatically dropped the level of the reservoir, shows on red Navajo sandstone formations near Last Chance Bay at Lake Powell near Page, Ariz. Lake Powell and the next biggest Colorado River reservoir, the nearly 100-year-old Lake Mead, are at the lowest levels ever recorded. David Mcnew / Getty ImagesBy Shaun McKinnon, The Arizona Republic

Thirty years after Arizona tried to stop cities and towns from using up their groundwater, the state still can’t shake its thirst for one of its most finite resources. The steady drain on underground reserves grows out of two realities: Canals and pipelines don’t reach far enough to deliver surface water to everyone, and laws don’t reach far enough to stop people from drilling. If the groundwater addiction continues unabated and under-regulated, the effects will be broad and potentially disastrous: Scarcer supplies could push rates higher and create uncertainty about water availability, discouraging new business and slowing economic growth. If wells start to run dry and aquifers collapse, the landscape could be dotted with fissures and sinkholes. Lawmakers adopted some of the nation’s most progressive water-protection laws to avert such crises, but the laws excluded rural areas and allowed changes that let cities and subdivisions resume well-drilling, further depleting exhaustible aquifers. Meanwhile, the renewable resource intended to replace groundwater – surface water fed by the annual runoff of mountain snow – can’t meet the demand of urban areas too far from the delivery canals. The result is holes in the state’s water bucket that are spreading as fast as the holes in the ground. Rural communities, some of them hurting for water now, are drilling new wells with limited knowledge of how much water is needed or how much remains. A water source intended to serve a few isolated areas is now so widely tapped that it has become an unsustainable drain on the aquifers that hold the groundwater. Cities and towns are even preparing to tap underground reserves set aside as a hedge against future shortages. And looming over it all are the separate threats of drought and climate change, which could strain surface-water supplies at the same time that groundwater resources are shrinking. …

Unabated use of groundwater threatens Arizona’s future