City of Glendale

Glendale council Member Bart Turner has been elected as vice president of the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association by its board of directors.

Spring rains have helped increase water reserves in Maricopa County.

But long-term concerns about preserving the state’s most precious resource are still top of mind for conservationists and public policy influencers such as the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association (AMWUA).

Glendale Council member Bart Turner is the organization’s newly elected vice president. He said groundwater pumping around the state is a serious concern.

“The water that’s getting pumped from the ground now isn’t rainwater that’s soaked into the aquifer over the last 10 or 50 or 100 years,” he said. “They’re drilling deep enough that they’re pumping ancient groundwater that is not replenishable in our lifetimes or the lifetimes of our children.”

Turner said some of AMWUA’s top priorities are educating residents on conservation, looking toward the future of technologies like desalinization and influencing responsible use policy at the state legislative level. 

As newly elected vice president, Turner said in a press release, “It is my intention to continue advocating for responsible water laws and regulations that first and foremost guarantee the future availability of water to the families we represent, and then also those policies which support economic prosperity in combination with water sustainability.”

The association was established in 1969 and includes 10 cities within Maricopa County.