Ed McGavock
Montgomery & Associates
bigkachina@gmail.com
Almost two-thirds of Arizona’s available groundwater storage lies in ADWR’s “Northeast Plateau Planning Area”, according to the recent WRDC report. That amounts to about 764 million acre-feet (MAF) of the State’s estimated total of 1.2 billion acre-feet of available groundwater storage. The poster indicates that only about 165 MAF is available for planning, management and use outside of the Navajo Nation and Hopi Reservation. That 165 MAF is further reduced to about 50 MAF of drinkable groundwater in storage, available to non-Indian, non-Federal users. Groundwater salinity, and increased awareness of groundwater/surface water interaction, are substantial impediments to “Groundwater Security” in the Northeast Plateau.