What I'm Reading This Month
By Nadine Holder
January 2008

Water Follies, Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America's Fresh Waters, by Robert Glennon, Island Press, 2002

Trying to keep one’s finger on the pulse of the state of our water supply in Cochise County gets pretty daunting so I have backed up for some background information and found the above book which includes two entire Arizona chapters (one on Tucson, and one on the San Pedro River in Cochise County) about the background history of water problems in America.

Glennon tells us that the excessive pumping of our aquifers has created an environmental catastrophe known to only a few experts and to those who have already suffered the consequences.


The original legislation for Arizona is the 1980 Arizona Groundwater Management Act. This involved only the creation of active management areas where problems were severe, i.e., mainly Tucson and Phoenix. It is only now being supplemented by HB2300 and SB1575, bills to establish some control outside the Active Management Areas. Reading the legislation is a real snooze but Glennon’s book is pretty fascinating - as one of the reviewer’s said “If you want to scare yourself silly, read Water Follies - you’ll learn how America is irrigating itself to death while sucking the groundwater aquifers dry.”

Glennon tells us that the excessive pumping of our aquifers has created an environmental catastrophe known to only a few experts and to those who have already suffered the consequences. He covers Tucson where the Santa Cruz River disappeared due to pumping of groundwater and Tampa Bay, Florida, where lakes have been turned into mudflats. He mentions Waushara County in the heart of Wisconsin where Perrier was prevented from pumping spring water from under state owned land but circumvented the will of the people by putting “test” wells on private property that severely affect the local river. In Poland Spring, Maine, Perrier was welcomed by the community. The problem is that corporations have a great incentive to pump aquifers dry for short term profits, especially if they can avoid paying damages for harming the environment. When the aquifer is dry they can simply move on somewhere else.

The problem has been ignored for a long time as the scientific community failed to make the connection between “ground water” and “surface water.” Gradually that connection is being recognized but legislation is so entrenched that it will be very, very difficult to make the legal changes for protection of both.

The Chapter on the Upper San Pedro River gives a very cogent history of water problems in Cochise County. It refers back to a beautiful article on the San Pedro in National Geographic in April 2002 by Barbara Kingsolver (of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – Reviewed in Borderline Mensa M-Bassador Sept 2007). Too bad Barbara left Tucson for Virginia as she was clearly a wonderful advocate for the San Pedro.

The two Arizona bills mentioned above are leading to attention on water problems outside Active Management Areas. Watch for local meetings for information on the bills. One was already held on September 23 by the Arizona Department of Water Resources on SB 1575 and we were informed that there will be more meetings as the county goes through the rule making process locally. Yours truly will be attending these meetings when possible as Chairman of the local DAR Chapter’s Conservation Committee. Since we will be preparing reports about the meetings to present to DAR, if there is interest we can send copies to The BoMB (however the Sierra Vista Herald did an excellent job of summarizing the September 23 meeting.)


Copyright © 2008 Nadine Holder.


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