Rural areas face challenge to find next water source

As Phoenix, Mesa, Tucson and the rest of Arizona's big cities wonder if there will be enough water for the next 100 years, the question up in the cool pines of the high country is sometimes a little more basic: Will there be enough for the next year? Rural Arizona has long been the weak link in the state's water-supply chain. Its cities and towns can pump groundwater freely with almost none of the limits that protect urban aquifers. Renewable surface-water supplies are rare, and without the kind of federal subsidies that helped build the Central Arizona Project canal that delivers Colorado River water, those supplies can't reach far. The result for rural parts of the state is an erratic patchwork of wells, springs and seasonal streams and lakes - a water supply that fails occasionally because of overuse and carries few promises about its long-term sustainability...ArizonaRepublic