… Around the entire Willcox Basin, estimates are that more than 100 drinking wells have dried up in recent years. Regulators from the Arizona Department of Water Resources have proposed cutting water use by farms — by far the basin’s largest water user — by 10% to reduce the pressure on the area’s long-depleted aquifer. … State officials tookthe first step this month towards curbing the Willcox Basin’s chronic groundwater overdraft. Following more than a decade of building anger and anguished debate over water use and drying wells in the basin, ADWR has proposed torequire most farmers in the 1,911-square-mile basin covering parts of Cochise and Graham counties to cut their water use by 10% starting in 2029. But already, Steve Kisiel, leader of an activist group in the basin called Cochise Groundwater Stewards, said he’s received anecdotal accounts of “easily more than 100” wells in the basin that had to be deepened after they’d gone dry. 

Other groundwater news:

• SJV Water (Bakersfield, Calif.): Kings County groundwater agency to host workshops ahead of land assessment fee election