Arizona, Running Out Of Water, Moving Towards Growth Limits

First it was Florida, where fresh water is drying up.

Now Arizona.

Here are the key paragraphs from that AP story:

"PHOENIX — Arizona lawmakers voted Thursday to expand the state's growth management efforts, approving a bipartisan bill to empower counties and cities to place new restrictions on rural development without adequate water supplies.

The House's 50-1 vote completed legislative action on the bill, which now goes to Gov. Janet Napolitano, a supporter.

The Senate approved the bill on March 8 on a 26-2 vote.

Legislative approval of the measure came a quarter-century after the 1980 enactment of a historic groundwater management law imposing new pumping and irrigation restrictions in "active management areas." Those areas include Phoenix, Tucson and Prescott.

Those urban-oriented restrictions were aimed at curbing groundwater depletion that outpaced natural replacement.

Subsequent population growth in the nation's fastest growing state has started to crowd some rural areas, leaving some straining to secure adequate water supplies. In parts of eastern and northern Arizona, residents have to truck in water. "

Think anyone in Waukesha, where communities there are drawing down the water table, but embracing every annexation that comes their way, is paying attention?

The Great Lakes may be big, but they are not infinite, and recharge at the rate of 1% a year.