The Duchess Of Drought Rides Again
I've been watching the issue with the data centers and how our Cochise County Board of Supervisors were planning to address the matter. Honestly, I'm glad they have been open and thoughtful about getting in front of this issue. I know a lot of folks are dissatisfied with the ordinance that came out on April 7th and felt it had major loopholes allowing a data center to come in and drain our aquifers. There were indeed such gaps. But I don't think folks know why the county couldn't close them. It's not because they didn't want to. It's because Gail Griffin has tied their hands.
Folks are very concerned about water here in LD19, and for good reason. Look at what's happening to Willcox. Coronado Dairy alone pumps more than every other user on the aquifer. That's more water than the entire town of Willcox uses for homes, schools, and businesses combined. Families out there have watched their wells go dry while an industrial dairy worth hundreds of millions of dollars, that only employs 200 of us, pumps from 2,500 feet deep.
People have been trying for years to get some protection for the groundwater that feeds their wells. All the while, Gail Griffin has obstructed any sort of systemic change. Misdirections, half measures, and tweaks are all she'll let hit the House floor. Through House Continuing Resolution 2039, she has all but explicitly forbidden local governments from managing their own water supplies. The resolution says the 1980 Groundwater Management Act must be strictly interpreted—meaning any local attempt to regulate water would be seen as illegitimate by the state legislature, and any county that tried would likely be sued into bankruptcy.
Here's the twisted part. If you want to build a new subdivision so people have a place to live, you have to prove a 100-year water supply. That's a real restriction. But industrial use? So long as it's called "reasonable use," you can take as much as you want. No real limits.
The land subsidence and dry wells in the Sulphur Springs Valley got so bad that an Active Management Area had to be created over the aquifer that serves Willcox. But even that couldn't stop the current level of industrial pumping. To fight back, the Arizona Attorney General had to file a public nuisance lawsuit. And what did the Republicans do? They got to work trying to restrict lawsuits like that from ever happening again. At every turn, under Gail Griffin's leadership, the Legislature has made sure industry gets the water it wants while families are left with dry wells and devalued properties.
Let's be honest about how this plays out. It makes it harder to build housing, driving up the price of every home. It makes it easier to build million-dollar industrial projects, turning our land into a magnet for heavy industry.
Gail Griffin is a realtor. She makes her money by getting a cut of the sale price when land changes hands. I'm not saying she writes laws exclusively to benefit herself. But I am saying that when your job is to profit from land sales, and your legislative record is to make land more attractive to industry and more expensive for families, that is a clear conflict of interest. And to my knowledge, she has never explained it.
So back to the data centers and the ordinance passed by Cochise County. The ordinance isn't the end of this situation. Whenever a new project is proposed, the local government has the option to require a Community Benefit Agreement—or CBA. As long as the terms of the CBA match the effects of the project and protect the community from harm, the CBA can place real, enforceable conditions on the developer.
That means that on a case-by-case basis, if a data center is proposed, we will have to keep our eyes open and make sure the county does the right thing. They can require a hydrogeological study to prove ample water supplies. They can require closed-loop cooling that doesn't waste water. They can require bonding to cover damages if there's an accident or if environmental protections fail. A CBA functions like a contract, not a law. So the restrictions Gail Griffin imposed to tie our local leaders' hands have less sway here.
We could have real legislation to ensure long-term sustainable water supplies. But that doesn't serve the current Republican Legislature or the out-of-state developers who donate to them.
Gail Griffin wants to be your State Senator this upcoming term. I think it's time she retired. And it's time a new crop of leaders—people who care about the wellbeing of families first—were given a chance to make meaningful legislation to fix our problems.
My Digital New Deal does this and so much more. You can read all about it and the legislative proposals that make it work here:
https://www.slawsonforazdistrict19.org/digital-new-deal
