"Conserving and sustaining all water resources...it's our future."

Mission Statement

To ensure a reliable and sustainable water supply to efficiently meet current and future water uses within the Pinal AMA while protecting the environment and general economy.

Pinal AMA Goal

The management goal of the Pinal AMA is to allow development of non-irrigation uses and to preserve existing agricultural economies in the AMA for as long as feasible, consistent with the necessity to preserve future water supplies for non-irrigation uses.

AMA Description

The Pinal AMA (click here for a link to the map ) covers approximately 4,000 square miles in central Arizona. The topography consists of gently sloping alluvial basins separated by north to northwest trending fault-block mountains. Land surface elevations range from 1,000 to 4,000 feet above sea level. The AMA consists of five subbasins with unique groundwater underflow, storage, and surface water characteristics. These subbasins are: Maricopa-Stanfield, Eloy, Vekol Valley, Santa Rosa Valley, and Aguirre Valley. The boundaries of the subbasins follow the highest elevation of topographic divides separating areas from where surface water runoff emanates. The boundaries that separate the Eloy and Maricopa-Stanfield subbasins also signify the presence of groundwater divides that define the extent of groundwater underflow. Migration of groundwater underflow between these subbasins is limited or non-existent.

AMA Water Budget

The Pinal AMA’s supply and demand estimates, also known as a “ water budget”, are designed to volumetrically account for supply and demand use figures. The most recent water budget is for 1998. Efforts are currently underway to update the water budget. The water budget can be viewed here.

In 2004, the AMA water budget was independently studied by Burgess & Niple.  See the results of their study here
Professional Review of the Pinal AMA's Groundwater Budget, 2004

AMA Conservation Requirements

One of the Department’s responsibilities under the 1980 Groundwater Code is to develop a management plan for each active management area for each of the five management periods. The Code requires that each management plan “include a continuing mandatory conservation program for all persons withdrawing, distributing, or receiving groundwater designed to achieve reductions in withdrawals of groundwater.” Chapters 4,5, and 6 of the Third Management Plan (TMP) for the Pinal AMA contain the agricultural, municipal, and industrial conservation programs respectively. Specific conservation requirements for groundwater users and groundwater distribution systems are found at the end of Chapters 4 and 5 and the end of the sections for the ten industrial program categories contained in Chapter 6. It should be noted that the modifications to the TMP, which were adopted in May 2003, have resulted in a number of changes to the conservation programs for all three water use sectors. This is especially true for agricultural water users, as an entirely new Chapter 4 has replaced Chapter 4 in the TMP. For further information concerning specific conservation requirements by program, click here for agricultural, click here for municipal, or click here for industrial.

Pinal AMA Major Water Management Issues

• There is a critical need to develop water management programs to “preserve future water supplies for non-irrigation uses” in the Pinal AMA.  As recommended by the Governor’s Water Management Commission, a comprehensive planning and program effort is needed to ensure a reliable and sustainable supply of water for municipal and industrial uses.
• The Assured Water Supply Rules (AWS) in the Pinal AMA, specifically the allocations of allowable groundwater pumping, allow for far more groundwater use than in the other AMAs.  The AWS Rules currently allocate a volume of groundwater that is sufficient to meet all the needs of most developments. This “over-allocation” facilitates development on lands without grandfathered rights because there is little or no incentive for developers to acquire additional groundwater by purchasing and extinguishing an irrigation grandfathered right in order to receive AWS credits.
• Groundwater mining by industrial users is rapidly increasing in the Pinal AMA and needs to be limited to an annual amount that is consistent with the AMA’s management goal.
• Future reductions in the use of CAP water supplies by non-Indian agriculture (NIA) in the Pinal AMA are expected as higher priority municipal and industrial CAP allocations become fully utilized in the Phoenix and Tucson AMAs. Without the continued availability of competitively priced CAP supplies, irrigation districts will have little choice but to increase use of mined groundwater supplies.
• There is a need for regional recharge and recovery planning in the Pinal AMA to minimize the impacts of critical area problems that may develop in the future, including lack of physical availability of groundwater, excessive water level decline rates, land subsidence, and earth fissuring.

Presentations Links

The following PowerPoint presentations may require several minutes to download, please be patient.

Pinal AMA Virtual Tour

Overdraft: Fact or Fiction?

Pinal Management Goal

Agricultural Preservation

Dairy Presentation

BMP Program

Integrated Management

Pinal AMA Links

• ADWR Home
   
• Recharge and Recovery
   
• Pinal AMA Recharge Info.
   
• Overview of GW Code
   
• Pinal AMA Groundwater Users Advisory Council (GUAC) (updated February, 2007)
   
• Pinal AMA Third Management Plan
   
• Pinal AMA Third Management Plan Modifications
   
• Pinal AMA Water Facts 
   
• Low Water Use Plant List

• Drilling a Well in Arizona
   
• How to obtain well information
   
• FORTIS-Imaged Well Documents
   
• Wells-55-Search for Wells
  (when available)
• Local Well Drillers and Pump Contractors

• Annual Report Forms
   
• Groundwater Rights Conveyance Forms
   
• Permit Application Forms

Pinal AMA Contact Information

• See the Contact Us page for a Mapquest map of the Pinal AMA Office.

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