PHOENIX — Tom Buschatzke says it wouldn’t be wrong to see the freeze on new development in an area in and around Buckeye due to a shortage of groundwater there as the canary in the coal mine.
But the director of the state Department of Water Resources said the early warning for Arizonans from the canary really first occurred three years ago in Pinal County: His agency already is refusing to issue the necessary permits for new developments that were planning to rely solely on groundwater.
More to the point, he said, much of the rest of this drought-stricken state is headed that way absent some new source of water.
