Arizona’s Department of Water Resources has signed off on a first-of-its-kind agreement allowing two fast-growing cities to spend millions to transport water from a rural groundwater basin to support existing developments and future growth.
As the Business Journal first reported, the deal has been in the works since 2022.
Under the agreement approved last week, Buckeye and Queen Creek can withdraw 5,926 acre-feet and 5,000 acre-feet per year, respectively, for the next 110 years from the Harquahala Groundwater Basin and transport it back to their communities.
The basin, which is in the far west part of Maricopa County, was designated as a kind of groundwater savings account by the Arizona State Legislature in 1991.
