Gilbert received a $27.8 million appropriation out of the state budget that will be used to drill additional groundwater drills, part of town plan to buffer the possible loss of Colorado River water.
The money comes as part of the $17.8 billion budget negotiated between Gov. Katie Hobbs and Legislative Republicans. Under that deal, legislators were able to identify projects in their districts for funding or pool their share with other legislators for some larger projects.
Gilbert officials were contacted by Rep. Laurin Hendrix, a Republican from Legislative District 14, about what needed funding in the town. Hendrix served on Gilbert Town Council 2020-22. Legislative District 14 covers most of the town.
Town officials identified Gilbert's accelerated wells project, and after working with Hendrix and legislators representing the town, the award came in the appropriations bill.
“We are definitely grateful,” Public Works Director Jessica Marlow said. “They reached out several times asking for information and more details and were very supportive of the request at the state and really fought for it. And we're very grateful for that because it will make a huge difference.”
The appropriation was the largest given for a local-government purpose and the fourth largest in the bill overall.
The project
Gilbert has had plans to drill additional wells in the upcoming years, but the water shortage on the Colorado River with looming cutbacks as a result has prompted the town to accelerate its plans on when some of the wells would be drilled.
The new plan calls for six well projects to be moved forward in the town’s capital improvement projects schedule. Those wells were scheduled from fiscal year to 2024-25 to fiscal year 2030-31. They would be moved into the current fiscal year or next fiscal year, which starts July 1.
The town hopes to produce about 12 million gallons a day from the wells with a couple more wells available as backups toward reaching the production goal, Assistant Public Works Director Eric Braun said.
“We target about two million gallons per day from a well,” he said. “And depending on the geology underneath our feet, which we find out when we drill, it can produce that much. It can produce more. Two million gallons per day would be pretty good.”
The need for tapping into additional groundwater was to counter the effects of the historic drought and lowering water levels at Colorado River reservoirs Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
The Central Arizona Project delivers water from the river to Gilbert among other customers. In 2021, CAP water accounted for 38% of the town’s potable water supply, with another 34% coming from Salt River Project reservoirs and 28% from groundwater, according to town documents from a December 2022 presentation to Gilbert Town Council at a strategic retreat.
At that presentation, town officials explained its capacity for treating water is 104 million gallons per day and the most it has needed to produce on the hottest day is 78 million gallons. That puts the town at 75% in what it called its utilization rate.
However, if the town were to lose all of its supply of Colorado River water, that would take the SanTan treatment plant offline and reduce the town’s capacity to produce water to 80 million gallons per day, a 97% capacity rate that would force the town into steep cuts upon residents and businesses to assure water keeps flowing from taps.
An additional 12 million gallons per day from groundwater would give the system additional resiliency, Braun said, which would allow it to continue meetings town water customers’ needs, even if the town was cut off from Colorado River water.
Each well takes about three years to come online. Additionally, the town is expanding capacity at its North Water Treatment plant. The ability to produce more drinking water will help the town meet its needs as it reaches build-out in the next few years, officials said.
A couple of the new wells are being paid for by system development fees that developers pay to construct new developments. However, funding the remaining wells is part of a water rate study the town is conducting, Marlow said, as each well costs about $9 million to design, construct and activate.
“That assumes that the water quality is good, it doesn't need additional treatment, and that it's a pretty straightforward construction process,” Marlow said. “What we shared with the council in the fall is that there was a gap, and we did not have funding identified for all of the new wells that we were needing to drill.”
The $27.8 million received from the state budget thus will pay for about three wells, she said.
Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on Twitter. We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.
Tom Blodgett Senior News Editor | Gilbert @sp_blodgett
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
town of Gilbert,
Arizona Legislature,
Arizona budget,
Gilbert public works,
Gilbert water supply,
wells,
Katie Hobbs,
Laurin Hendrix,
Jessica Marlow,
Eric Braun
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