Patrick Cunningham, General Counsel Emeritus, HighGround Public Affairs

Michael J. Pearce, Gammage & Burnham, PLC

Jan 20, 2021 – Collaborative Capacity Building and Sovereign Science with NASA and the Navajo Nation

Amber Jean McCullum, PhD, Applied Scientist, BAERI/NASA Ames Research Center

Nikki Tulley, PhD Student, Department of Environmental Science, University of Arizona

Feb 3, 2021 - Recovery Planning

Angie Lohse, Senior Policy Analyst, Central Arizona Project

Virginia O'Connell, Director, Arizona Water Banking Authority

Mar 11, 2021 - Community Service and Environmental Justice as Essential Best Practices for the Clean Water Utility of the Future

Andrew Kricun, Managing Director, Moonshot Missions; Senior Fellow, US Water Alliance

The Eloy and Maricopa-Stanfield Basin Study (Basin Study) is a collaboration between the US Bureau of Reclamation and the Pinal Partnership. The Pinal Partnership is an organization made up of public and private groups to create a vision of uniting community growth efforts in Pinal County. The study area is approximately 2,000 square miles of Pinal County in central Arizona, located between the rapidly expanding cities of Phoenix and Tucson. This area is a “hot spot” in the Arizona water resource management arena due to the confluence of water users and water demands. Currently, non-tribal agriculture occupies about 20% of the land and accounts for about 80% of the water used in the study area. In addition to other arid-southwest water issues, these agricultural users now face large delivery reductions of Central Arizona Project (CAP) water due to agreements set forth in the recently signed multi-state Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan (DCP). As a result, groundwater pumping and aquifer overdraft effects may increase. This Basin Study will document the current water budget and profile a set of future supply and demand scenarios. The scenarios will be examined in an updated groundwater flow model. Adaptation strategies will be developed that consider the modeled scenarios and optimize water use. This Basin Study, initiated in November 2018, is scheduled to be completed in May 2022. For more information please see the project website at http://pinalpartnership.com/ems-basin-study or contact Valerie Swick at vswick@usbr.gov.

Last week's WRRC Brown Bag webinar “Balancing Environmental, Municipal, and Agricultural Needs in the Edwards Aquifer" featured Adam Yablonski, a farmer and rancher in Medina County, Texas, who has been involved in regional water planning for more than a decade. The Edwards Aquifer provides easy access to irrigation water to agricultural users in the Western counties and drinking water to two million people in the San Antonio and Austin metropolitan areas. For years, springs in the Eastern counties downstream received a very limited flow, which threatened already endangered species. Yablonski traced how a lawsuit, brought by the Sierra Club in the 90s, forced the Texas legislature to act, creating the Edwards Aquifer Authority to implement a water permitting system. Then in 2007, the legislature created the Edwards Aquifer Recovery Implementation Program, a consensus-based process involving stakeholders from cities, industries, utilities, environmental groups, river authorities, state governmental entities, and citizens. Through this process, many water management decisions were made, such as habitat restoration, municipal conservation, aquifer storage and recovery, and voluntary irrigation suspension options. Yablonski insisted on the importance of establishing trust and understanding among parties during the four-year-long consensus process.

As the end of the year approaches, it is hard not to reflect on the changes in our work lives since we went into quarantine in March. Like many outreach programs at UArizona, we strove to reinvent ourselves and find new ways to reach our audiences with effective education. In time, our team learned how to be videographers, graphic designers, and technology wizards. Thanks to our team’s herculean efforts, we have developed new ways to deliver our programs fully online. The Home Water Audit Program has accumulated student-generated water savings of 250,000 gallons per year to date! The Arizona Water Festival continues to engage 4^th graders and now culminates with a magical virtual Celebration of Learning. We are continuing these efforts and bringing groundwater, outdoor exploration, and climate resiliency programs online in January. We are dedicated to serving teachers, students, and parents throughout AZ – those greatly impacted by this pandemic. We are especially grateful for our teachers, who have stayed committed to our programs and continue to do so much for their students.

We wish you Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! Check out our Holiday Greetings Video. Thank You!

WRRC Graduate Research Assistant Rebecca Bernat, Ph.D. Candidate in Environmental Science, presented her research at the Second International Water, Megacities and Global Change Pre-Conference organized by the UNESCO Division of Water Science and three French partners. The conference was held virtually on December 7-11, 2020, and live-streamed on the UNESCO YouTube Channel. The conference featured researchers, operators, civil society, students, and political representatives addressing challenges and solutions related to water, megacities, and global change. On December 10, Bernat presented her research on managed aquifer recharge and Arizona's water policy in a talk entitled “Global Change in the Sun Corridor Megaregion: managed aquifer recharge planning tools in the Central Arizona Desert, USA."

Arizona Project WET has an exciting new position in Maricopa County for an Outreach Instructional Specialist. This person will be working to develop and deliver the new 

Groundwater Education and Conservation (GEC) program in the West Valley area and will work with a broader statewide extension team of education specialists to meet APW's programmatic goals and objectives. Click here to apply

OR go to https://talent.arizona.edu/ and search for Posting Number: req3540.  

For additional information, please contact Sandra Hurlbut at shurlbut@arizona.edu.  

Please visit UA Water Network for more water jobs & opportunities.