In the report, the center wrote that Phoenix's West Valley, "lacks enough water to support the development Interstate 11 is proposing to serve." A recent Arizona Department of Water Resources report found the West Valley, including the city of Buckeye, is "projected to be 4.4 million acre-feet short of what it needs for anticipated growth based on future pumping and recharge estimates."
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"Because state law requires a 100-year assured water supply in this region, the agency can’t approve new development here," the group wrote. Further, groundwater is "also over-allocated in the state, with cities, farms, developers and other entities claiming the right to use more water than exists," the center wrote. "As a result, wells and water supplies for agriculture and desert cities are drying up as groundwater pumping outpaces recharge."
"Despite years of study, officials have failed to analyze whether there’s enough water to justify this multi-billion dollar highway," said Russ McSpadden, southwest conservation advocate for the center. "This threatens to be a massive waste of public money and it’s reckless for them to push forward. Instead, Arizona should encourage smart growth, divest from polluting highways and promote green transportation."
The Route Through the Drought
As proposed, Interstate 11 would extend 280 miles from Nogales, Arizona, on the Mexican border, north to Wickenburg, northwest of Phoenix. Government planners’ preferred corridor would run through pristine desert alongside Saguaro National Park, Ironwood Forest National Monument, the Tohono O’odham Nation, Sonoran Desert National Monument and protected wilderness areas, as well the exurban and rural fringes of Tucson and Phoenix.
In a July 2021 environmental impact statement, state and federal transportation agencies said the highway’s primary purpose is to “provide a high-priority, high-capacity, access co-controlled transportation corridor to serve population and employment growth.”10 The agencies relied on projected population and employment growth models to estimate future travel demand and justify the new highway. They identified a preferred route to serve seven planned growth areas (see map).
- According to the U.S. Census, Arizona is one of the fastest-growing states in the country and had five of the 15 fastest-growing cities in the United States in 2021.11
- The government’s projected population growth models for the interstate did not consider the megadrought or the state’s water supplies.12
- Buckeye: High and Dry New information about one of the largest growth areas, the West Valley, clearly demonstrates that Interstate 11’s goal of serving growth in the Arizona desert is at risk for lack of water.
- In January 2023 the Arizona Department of Water Resources released a bombshell report with a damning conclusion: The West Valley’s water supply is projected to be 4.4 million acre-feet short of what it needs based on estimates of groundwater pumping and aquifer recharge.13
- Because state law requires a 100-year assured water supply in this region, the agency can’t approve new development here. There just isn’t enough water.
- Buckeye’s 2020 master plan analyzed the water needs of 27 approved master-planned communities. Buckeye would expand eight times over in the coming decades to 872,000 people from a current population of about 101,000, and these new residents would need 132,850 acre-feet of water every year. Just one of the mega
Above: Map of Growth Areas in the I-11 Study Area from the final Environmental Impact Statement.
For Immediate Release, May 23, 2023
Contact: | Russ McSpadden, (928) 310-6713, rmcspadden@biologicaldiversity.org |
Report: Proposed Interstate 11 Would Worsen Arizona’s Water Crisis
TUCSON, Ariz.— The proposed Interstate 11 through Arizona would spur dramatic population growth and an unsustainable increase in water demand, according to a new report.
Deadpool Highway, released today by the Center for Biological Diversity, uses government population and water-use estimates to analyze seven growth areas — future development officials say justifies building the 280-mile north-south highway through the desert.
“This proposed interstate is based on growth for which there isn’t enough water,” said Russ McSpadden, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity and co-author of the report. “The highway would spawn unsustainable suburban sprawl and worsen water scarcity in the midst of a megadrought with no end in sight. Interstate 11 should be shelved before any more tax dollars are wasted.”
Among the report’s findings:
- Population in growth areas would soar more than 10 times from roughly 220,500 people to more than 2.8 million, increasing Arizona’s population by a third.
- Water use would increase more than 10-fold, from 33,593 acre-feet of water per year to 396,400 acre-feet per year. That’s 2,774,800 acre-feet every seven years, roughly Arizona’s entire annual Colorado River allotment.
- At least one area, metropolitan Phoenix’s West Valley, lacks enough water to support the development Interstate 11 is proposing to serve.
- The highway’s environmental analysis doesn’t consider how much water demand it could induce or whether there’s enough water to support these growth areas.
Climate change-driven warming and drying, and the overallocation of Colorado River water, have left Lake Powell and Lake Mead perilously low. In 2023 Arizona entered a Tier 2 shortage and the federal government cut its Colorado River supply by 21%.
Groundwater is also overallocated in the state, with cities, farms, developers and other entities claiming the right to use more water than exists. As a result, wells and water supplies for agriculture and desert cities are drying up as groundwater pumping outpaces recharge.
A recent Arizona Department of Water Resources report shows that the West Valley, including the city of Buckeye, is projected to be 4.4 million acre-feet short of what it needs for anticipated growth based on future pumping and recharge estimates. Because state law requires a 100-year assured water supply in this region, the agency can’t approve new development here.
“Despite years of study, officials have failed to analyze whether there’s enough water to justify this multi-billion dollar highway,” said McSpadden. “This threatens to be a massive waste of public money and it’s reckless for them to push forward. Instead, Arizona should encourage smart growth, divest from polluting highways and promote green transportation.”
Background
A July 2021 environmental analysis identified a preferred corridor for Interstate 11, which would run between the border town of Nogales and Wickenburg, Arizona, northwest of Phoenix. One of two alternative routes through Pima County goes through pristine desert alongside Saguaro National Park, Ironwood Forest National Monument, the Tohono O’odham Nation, Sonoran Desert National Monument and protected wilderness areas, as well the exurban and rural fringes of Tucson and Phoenix.
In April 2022 conservation groups sued the Federal Highway Administration to challenge its approval of Interstate 11. The suit said the agency failed to consider other transportation alternatives, such as rail, and sidestepped the required environmental review.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.7 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
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Jerry Colangelo eyes ‘city of future’ in West Valley development
Oct 22, 2021, 1:00 PM
PHOENIX — Phoenix business mogul Jerry Colangelo said the vision for the large-scale planned community in the West Valley near Buckeye is to make a “city of the future.”
Though development for the 37,000-acre Douglas Ranch property purchased in 2002 will begin in the first half of 2022, former Phoenix Suns owner Colangelo told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Arizona’s Morning News it’s been an ongoing process for his company, JDM Partners.
“We bought that property 20 years ago and really just sat on it, kind of looking into the future, that someday it was going to be very, very developable,” Colangelo said.
Over the years, Colangelo said his company has acquired entitlements and certificates for water as the property sits on an aquifer, and planning judiciously.
Judge allows continued environmental lawsuit over Interstate 11 routes near Tucson
4 Southern Arizona groups oppose I-11 routes through 'pristine desert'
A lawsuit by environmental groups over the proposed Interstate 11 highway in Southern Arizona will continue after a U.S. District Court judge rejected arguments last week as federal officials attempted to dismiss part of the challenge.
Last April, four environmental groups based in Tucson— the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of Ironwood Forest, and Tucson Audubon Society—filed a lawsuit, arguing the Federal Highway Administration failed to follow the law — including the National Environmental Policy Act — when it selected a 280-mile corridor for proposed I-11 routes.
The groups claim the planned highway would cut through "pristine desert" west of Tucson, in Avra Valley. Federal officials said that there's no money allocated to construct the interstate, and won't be for years in the future, and that the plans are still preliminary.
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