The Gilbert Chamber of Commerce supports the 1980 Arizona Groundwater Management Act, including the 100-year assured water supply requirement for development. The Chamber also supports statewide development of long-term sustainable water supplies, coordination between active management areas, encouraging direct groundwater recharge projects, and promoting water conservation on a state level.
The proposal of HB 2366 calls into question our Designation of Assured Water Supply by threatening our physical availability of groundwater. The legislation will have serious impacts on future growth in Gilbert.
Arizona’s economy is built on having a sustainable water supply.
- A Designation of Assured Water Supply is a reliable and powerful standard for water security that ensures our desert economy will thrive. It shows that water providers, like Gilbert, have enough water for current, committed, and anticipated demands over the next 100 years. This unique distinction signals to everyone—residents, businesses, investors, bond lending agencies, and the national media—that Arizona is serious about managing its water.
HB 2366 threatens Gilbert’s investments in secure water supplies and infrastructure.
- Physical availability is more than groundwater pumping – it reserves space in the aquifer for Gilbert to engage in short and long-term water storage, use reclaimed water, and access reserve supplies during surface water shortages.
- Gilbert uses this space in the aquifer to fully utilize our reclaimed water by recharging it at facilities like the Riparian Preserve. We pump this supply back out and use it to serve existing HOAs, golf courses, and parks. HB 2366 endangers our ability to continue to serve these customers.
- HB2366 threatens our resiliency. Gilbert is currently drilling eight new wells to provide backup supply to our existing residents and businesses due to Colorado River shortages. These wells will access previously stored water that could no longer be available if our physical availability is reduced or lost.
HB 2366 threatens to undermine Gilbert’s economy by putting our designation at risk.
- Losing our designation would undercut our ability to provide water for current businesses, industries, and residents at a time when the Colorado River water is under tremendous stress.
- Without our designation, we would not be able to approve new developments and respond to the housing affordability and availability challenges that plague the state. More specifically it would halt the projected 12,000 residential units as well as over nine million square feet of non-residential development expected to occur from now through buildout.