CASA GRANDE – Wednesday, September 30 marked the end of the 2009 monsoon season.

The monsoon was much more of a non-soon.

Pinal County Board of Supervisors Chairman David Snider is a member of the Local Drought Impact Group for the area. He says the lack of rainfall for the monsoon season is not good news for the region.

“When you look at the overall picture,” Chairman Snider said, “everyone from our agricultural community to our residents rely on the monsoon to help replenish the water supply. We normally average about an inch and half of rain in August and I seriously doubt we reached that mark.”

The National Weather Service in Tucson had predicted that a phenomenon called “El Niño” could negatively affect the monsoon season. But there were hopes that an active tropical storm pattern south of Arizona could bring much needed rain to the north.

“I was just as hot and miserable as everyone else,” the Chairman said.

The Local Drought Impact Group that Chairman Snider is a member of held its first meeting in July 2006. The group is a local response to former Governor Janet Napolitano’s charge of starting a statewide drought task force. The Local Drought Impact Group is comprised of municipal leaders, members of the Native American tribes in Pinal County, water company officials, the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension and other officials from the state and national level.

“We have formed three workgroups to help us in our task,” Snider said. “We have a monitoring workgroup, an outreach and education workgroup along with the mitigation and response workgroup. We are working hard to keep the Governor’s Drought Task Force up to date with information from the local level. Many of the members feel an issue like this is too important to have decisions left to those who do not fully understand our needs on a local level.” The group is charged with the task of recommending a series of graduated conservation measures for each of the various watersheds in the County. Those measures are to serve as a local response to increasingly severe levels of drought that may occur in the future.

Considering that one of the primary industries in his district is agriculture, Chairman Snider said it behooves local farmers and ranchers to become more involved with the Local Drought Impact Group.

“Our farmers and ranchers are good stewards of the land and our resources, I think their expertise would greatly impact our vision on how to conserve the water we have,” the Chairman said. “I applaud the Natural Resource Conservation Districts for being engaged in the dialog and invite other sectors of the agriculture community to join the conversation as well. They are an important part of our economy in Pinal County and I want to see them thrive and grow.”

Chairman Snider offered these tips for helping conserve water:

• Landscape your property with native, drought resistant plants and not grass
• If you have a pool or a hot tub, purchase a cover to cut down on evaporation
• Turn off the water while you brush your teeth
• Upgrade older toilets with more efficient models
• Fix all leaky faucets and check your water bill for unusually high use
• Don’t clean off your sidewalk or garage with a water hose, use a broom instead
• Purchase a low flow shower head

He added that these tips save water and cash.

“We are very fortunate that water is not priced as a commodity like it is in neighboring states,” Chairman Snider said. “We have a finite amount of this precious resource and we need to use it wisely while doing our best to make sure that our grandchildren’s grandchildren have live-able supplies of water.”

###