TONOPAH, AZ — Mark Sigety has owned land in the Harquahala Valley near Tonopah since 2003. Since then, he says several investors have reached out to buy his half-acre plot along with other parcels in western Maricopa County.
"I've gotten a lot of letters from investors asking me to call them or get back with them because they wanted to buy my land," Sigety says. "I didn't want to sell it."
The Harquahala Groundwater Basin is one of three in rural Arizona set aside specifically to import water to the Valley once water gets scarce.
It's known as an Irrigation Non-Expansion Area, or INA. It's a place where the state or political subdivisions that own land eligible to be irrigated can pump groundwater and transport it into areas where groundwater is regulated in Arizona, known as AMAs, or Active Management Areas.
The Phoenix AMA is one of them and covers land from west of Buckeye to Superior.
Such agreements have been going on for at least a decade.
In 2013, Vidler Water Company, which owns land in the same basin, made a $10-million deal selling groundwater rights to two private Scottsdale golf courses. In 2015, it made a $3-million deal with the City of Scottsdale itself.
There are issues regarding transporting that groundwater out of the INA, according to Kathleen Ferris from Arizona State University's Kyl Center for Water Policy.
"First of all, you got to buy the land, which is a cost in and of itself," Ferris says. "Then, you've got to pump the groundwater and figure out how to get it to an AMA."
The cheapest and most feasible way is through the Central Arizona Project canal, but groundwater needs to be treated since it's high in nitrates and arsenic.
The Central Arizona Project hasn't authorized companies and communities to use its canal to transport groundwater yet.
Building a pipeline or hauling water to these areas are options, but both are expensive.
In 2022, the Arizona Legislature considered two bills that would allow private water companies regulated by the Arizona Corporation Commission to extract groundwater in an INA and transport it.
Ferris says it did not pass due to concerns about what it would do to water rates.
So, for now, the groundwater purchased in the Harquahala Valley will stay there, but Mark Sigety says if water gets scarcer, they'll find a way to move that water.
"If there's a drought and a shortage, then this is the place to get it," he says.
