Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) issued new guidelines for permitting recovery wells within an area of hydrologic impact. The City of Peoria was looking to permit more recovery wells based on these guidelines.

City of Peoria

Location: Maricopa County, Arizona
City of Peoria's recovery well permit application was the first submitted to ADWR under the new guidelines.

OVERVIEW

In 2021, Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) issued new guidelines for permitting recovery wells within an area of hydrologic impact (AOHI) of an Underground Storage Faculty (USF). The City of Peoria evaluated its long-term storage credits (LTSCs) from 3 USFs. Groundwater modeling was conducted in collaboration with ADWR and Peoria to determine the minimum LTSC pledges from the 3 USFs required to delineate an AOHI encompassing selected recovery wells. Enough wells were encompassed by the optimized AOHI to be part of Peoria’s recovery well permit application for the 3 USFs, which will help reduce overall demand for Peoria’s Designation of Assured Water Supply. Peoria’s recovery well permit application was the first submitted to ADWR under the new guidelines. This case study is relevant to any entity that has LTSCs at USFs and wishes to permit recovery wells outside the 1-mile safe harbor.

SERVICES

  • Support permitting of recovery wells
  • Balance long-term storage credit pledges with wells captured by area of hydrologic impact
  • Decrease overall modeled demand in Modification of Design
  • Develop shapefiles illustrating area of hydrologic impact