Judge refuses to pause ruling that struck down the groundwater policy halting new home approvals in parts of Queen Creek

The Arizona Department of Water Resources cannot keep using its 2023 groundwater policy while it appeals a ruling that threw the policy out, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge has ruled.

Judge Scott Blaney turned down the department's request to hold off on a final order, Capitol Media Services reported this week in a story carried by the Queen Creek Independent. Blaney ruled in April that the agency changed the rules for home builders illegally, without the public hearings and formal process a rule change requires.

What the 2023 policy did

Developers building in one of Arizona's eight active management areas generally must show a 100-year assured water supply. Projects inside a city or water company service area that already holds its own certificate usually meet that test. Projects outside those areas have to prove their own supply.

In 2023 the department began denying those developers whenever its groundwater modeling showed there was not a 100-year supply anywhere in the management area, not just at the property. It concluded water across the 5,600-square-mile Phoenix area basin could be guaranteed for 96 years, and it stopped granting certificates in parts of Queen Creek and Buckeye that did not already have them.

The Homebuilders Association of Central Arizona sued over that change.

The arguments

Department attorney Bo Dul argued the ruling was likely to be reversed and that homebuyers could be harmed if homes were approved without a true 100-year supply. She said the agency had not changed its rule but had used improved modeling showing the basin was already over-allocated.

Blaney wrote that "the defendants' concerns are not consistent with the facts," and said his order only requires the department to go back to the rules it used before adopting the 2023 policy.

Sean Hood, the builders' lawyer, said the ruling does not bar the agency from using updated data. It bars it from blocking a project based on supply anywhere in the basin without first adopting that standard as a formal rule, he said.

The department is seeking review from the Arizona Court of Appeals. So far the Phoenix basin is the only one where it has done these basin-wide studies, but future studies of other management areas, including Pinal, could lead to similar findings. Unless the ruling is overturned, it would bar the agency from acting on its own to halt building there as well, the report said.

Sources

yourvalley.net