Study to investigate underground water supply

Published on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 9:15 AM MST

Funds available for about five years

By Diane Saunders, Staff Writer

A study of the underground aquifer will let Graham County residents know how much water is underground and what the water quality is.

“It will give us the information we’ve wanted forever — how much water is in our bathtub (underground aquifer),” said Safford Utilities Director Jay Howe.

No start date of the study has been set.

It is unknown if there is one or multiple aquifers under Graham County. The study should reveal that information. In addition to water quantity and quality, the study is expected to show the depth of the groundwater, Howe said.

The study will likely include the use of monitoring wells, which will be key components, and historical data about the Gila Valley and the geology of the area.

“It’s certainly not going to be put a hole in the ground and guess,” Howe said.

The study will be paid for by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Geological Survey and the Arizona Department of Water Resources and is expected to take five to seven years, Howe said. The USGS will do the study.

The available funding for the study will be $100,000 to $130,000 a year and will come from BOR, USGS and ADWR, Howe said.

Jan Holder, program coordinator of the Gila Watershed Partnership, said most of Graham and southern Greenlee counties, except for parts in the national forest or the San Carlos Apache Reservation, will be studied.

“Right now, we’re putting together a contractual agreement between all of the entities,” Holder said.

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Comments

3 comment(s)

Lydia Brown wrote on Feb 6, 2009 3:00 AM:

" Well first of all i am Steven Browns older sister. And it has taken me two years to have courage to say that in this article, you degraded and pre judged my younger brother whom you knew nothing about, you assumed more then half of the story. He was 17 for crying out loud- his name should have never even been mentioned with this story. You were sure to emphasize every narrow minded comment about him-but never once did you use this occurance as a lesson others can learn from.a poor writer u r u have no compassion in urwriting. "

Mike Wikoff wrote on Feb 20, 2008 2:03 PM:

" Great work on bring back the "Mexican Wolf".

Now let's see if we can get the "Jaguar" reintroduced too.I'm a zoology graduate from No.Arizona U. presently living in Oregon. "

paige wrote on Jan 4, 2008 7:46 PM:

" caleb and jill are my cousins.
i have to watch him struggle to keep cool in the summer it breaks my heart to watch him hes 11 he should be outside running around like a 11 year old boy does "

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