Arizona is presently in the midst of a general adjudication for the Gila River system
-- the watershed which comprises the southern two- thirds of the state. The purpose of the
adjudication is to prioritize all water claims in the river system: both state -established and
federally reserved rights. Arizona adheres to a bifurcated (or divided) system of water law
which only recognizes a component of ground water -- called subflow -- to be
appropriable. Wells which pump non-appropriable water -- called tributary flow -- are not
to be included in the adjudication. The problem is that federal laws do not recognize this
artificial bifurcation.
The challenge lies in identifying a subflow zone which satisfies the hydrologic
fiction of existing state precedents and the hydrologic reality of federal statutes. At the
core of the problem lies the fate of Arizona's perennial stream water and the fulfillment of
federally reserved tribal water rights. Thus, larger questions loom: can Arizona law
reconcile its glutinous past with a water -scarce future, will the adjudication ever reach a
finality, and even if it does, will it be a finality that all sides can live with?
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/617631 |
| Date | 10 1900 |
| Creators | Sobczak, Robert V., Maddock, Thomas, III |
| Contributors | Department of Hydrology & Water Resources, The University of Arizona |
| Publisher | Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ) |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Technical Report |
| Source | Provided by the Department of Hydrology and Water Resources. |
| Rights | Copyright © Arizona Board of Regents |
| Relation | Technical Reports on Hydrology and Water Resources, No. 94-030 |
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