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PHOENIX — <\/span>Officials in drought-stricken Arizona are moving to regulate groundwater use on the state’s western edge where wells have been running dry. <\/p>\n The new rules allow for a management plan formed by the Arizona Department of Water Resources and locals, as well as requirements for conserving water. It applies to water users in the basin, including the Saudi Arabian agribusiness Fondomonte<\/a>, which draws all of its water from a basin in La Paz and Yuma counties to grow alfalfa as an export crop.<\/p>\n The changes won’t reverse the decline of groundwater. Rather, they are meant to slow the depletion of supplies through conservation mandates.<\/p>\n Gov. Katie Hobbs announced the designation of an active management area Monday during her annual address to the Legislature on its opening day. It followed a determination by the Arizona Department of Water Resources that plummeting water levels are causing land within the Ranegras Plain Groundwater Basin to sink, which impacts the amount of water that can be held underground. <\/p>\n \u201cWe can no longer sit idly by while our rural communities go without help,\u201d Hobbs said. \u201cThey deserve solutions and security, not another decade of inaction and uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n Under the designation, water users in the Ranegras Plain Groundwater Basin will have to track and report water usage. <\/p>\n Kari Ann Noeltner, chief deputy assessor for La Paz County who lives in the basin and is Republican, said she has started saving money in anticipation of needing to dig a deeper well for her own property. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat this does is give us some breathing room that we\u2019re not going to have more straws put into this basin without some serious oversight,\u201d she said of the designation. <\/p>\n Arizona\u2019s regulatory framework for managing groundwater was enacted in 1980 with a focus around Tucson and Phoenix, where most people live. There, for example, housing developers have to prove there’s a 100-year supply of water before building.<\/p>\n The lax laws in most rural areas, where water users essentially could pump to their hearts’ delight, attracted large-scale farming operations. Hobbs, a Democrat, toured Fondomonte’s operation last May as she called for the Republican-led Legislature to pass a deal<\/a> aimed at giving several rural parts of the state a more flexible alternative to active management areas.<\/p>\n Some Republicans saw it as a threat to the local economy, farming and property values. The talks stalled.<\/p>\n