Cobre Valley Small Town Forum on Water Builds Consensus on Water Priorities

On September 6th, more than 50 people gathered in Miami, Arizona to lend voice to the Cobre Valley Small Town Forum on Water, a meeting to facilitate discussion about water resources management among elected officials, utility and planning staff, natural resource experts, and other interested water users.  While small in size, only about 100 square miles, the Cobre Valley is home to multiple competing water uses, and water scarcity and upcoming legal determinations are making it more critical than ever for all community water users to agree on the status of water resources in the Valley and establish priorities for their management.  The quality and depth of ideas around regional water resources on September 6th laid excellent groundwork for our next steps. From the informative presentations in the morning to the afternoon break-out discussions, we were presented with many innovations and benefits of collaboration for sustainable water resources. In coordination with the US Bureau of Reclamation, Cobre Valley Watershed Partnership, and other community partners, we will pursue research and action planning around the seven agreed upon priorities within the four categories of: system efficiency/conservation, economy/development, recreation/environment, and water awareness/education.  Proposed actions were defined and assigned priorities based on focused discussions and participant voting.  These priorities will be further evaluated through a survey that will go out to a broader audience in October 2018, while the other ideas from group discussions will be considered for incorporation into a Water Resources Objectives Report.  Our next Small Town Forum will be in the spring of 2019 to report back on progress and move forward with actions.  If you would like to join the water supply and demand, recreation, or community awareness work group, please email Ashley Hullinger at hullinger@email.arizona.edu.

See the full summary report here.