Yavapai County hopes water talks flow – Sedona Red Rock News
Yavapai County Supervisors Nikki Check [D-District 3] and Chris Kuknyo [R-District 4] were tapped by their fellow supervisors to join the newly formed Water Resources and Open Space Committee during the board’s Dec. 3 meeting in Prescott.
In “January, myself and our county manager at the time, and several Yavapai County directors attended a Growing Water Smart conference, where we brainstormed amongst ourselves: What could the county do to make progress on water?” Check later said. “We coalesced around the idea that we’d like to see a more regional conversation, and that Yavapai County would be the most appropriate and best facilitator for [that] conversation.”
“Topics and reasons for convening this conversation would be to find areas of agreement where we could have some mutual cooperation to get some projects together, both in understanding our regional hydrology but also doing projects like stormwater capture, and additionally looking at what tools are already in our toolbox that we can implement for being water conscious, but also identifying areas — specifics that we would like to see added to our toolbox as far as decision-making on regional groundwater.”
The Yavapai County Water Advisory Committee was first approved by the board on Jan. 25, 1999. Check served as appointed member through the Jerome Town Council when she was Jerome’s mayor, before the committee was disbanded in 2014. Check expressed support for reforming a committee at several points on the 2024 campaign trail.
“Here’s what’s different about the way things used to be,” Check later said. “We had a Water Advisory Committee. So yes, Yavapai County has kind of been in this position of facilitating a regional conversation before, but that was at a time when the state was not very active. Since then, the governor [Katie Hobbs] has really activated the [Arizona] Department of Water Resources.
“They’re analyzing basins. They are making progress and forming ideas about how our groundwater is going to be managed. So what I would like to see is our regional stakeholders be able to have a cohesive voice in that conversation with the state.”
Check said the new effort must focus on areas of agreement rather than disagreement if it hopes to be productive. She described the prior committee as prone to get “mired around misunderstandings and disagreements around the interpretation of the data that’s available.”
“I think that there is a regional desire,” Check later said. “Prescott … the Verde Valley communities, they’ve all said they are committed to ensuring that the Upper Verde River continues to flow. But how to get there is an important topic. So that’s the area that I’d like to focus on — finding those areas of agreement. I don’t know why there wouldn’t be an area of agreement around doing some smart stormwater capture to help bolster that watershed. There’s so much around it, or preserving some open space to protect the hydrology there.”
The main focus of the committee’s conversation will be how to keep the upper Verde River flowing, Check said.
Calls for stronger regional coordination on water issues have been growing across the county. In May, Citizens Water Advocacy Group Executive Committee member Gary Beverly warned that cities within the Prescott Active Management Area continue to pursue new development while relying on a shared groundwater supply that is already in decline.
“The numbers are sobering,” Arizona Water Sentinels Program Manager for the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club Jennifer Martin wrote in a March blog. “Groundwater pumping and climate change have reduced the Verde River’s base flow by more than half compared to pre-development levels, “Del Rio Springs, once the historical headwaters, has been reduced to a trickle — just 5% of its original flow. Six miles of the upper Verde have already dried up, and projections suggest that the base flow at critical points could reach zero within a few decades. These declines threaten not only the river itself but the intricate web of life it supports.”
Sedona’s water supply is stable but declining, according to Arizona Water Company representatives during their Oct. 29 update to City Council.
Assistant Yavapai County Manager Tyler Goodman told the supervisors that Prescott Valley, Chino Valley, Dewey-Humboldt, Clarkdale, Cottonwood and Jerome have confirmed participation, with Sedona expected to finalize its representative by Friday, Dec. 19.
Sedona City Councilman Pete Furman told the NEWS he has an interest in being on the county’s new committee in addition to his current roles on the Northern Arizona Municipal Water Users Association and the Coconino Plateau Water Partnership.
“The watershed in our particular area is in relatively good shape relative to the rest of the Verde Valley and the rest of the county,” Furman said. “So, it’s going to be very interesting to see what this county group wants to take on, but it’s really important for Sedona to participate as well.”
The Water Resources and Open Space Committee is expected to begin meeting in January. The committee will be supported by a two-year, $25,000 grant from the Growing Water Smart for professional facilitation services, with the goals of creating web-based mapping tools for water data by February and a county-wide open space plan by June.