KEARNY, Ariz. — Mayor Curtis Stacy starts every morning checking two websites that tell him how much he needs to worry about water.
One site tells him about the reservoir that supplies his tiny desert town — it’s effectively empty. The other site tells him if the town gets additional water that other communities with more senior rights aren’t using; right now, the answer is yes.
But Stacy tries to remind Kearny’s roughly 2,000 residents that they could easily tip back into crisis mode, just like this spring. In newsletters, he underscores that fragility with no fewer than 20 exclamation points. If other communities call for more water, they will have to cut back again.
“!!!!!!!!!!THIS SITUATION IS ALMOST CERTAINLY TEMPORARY!!!!!!!!!!” he wrote in one bulletin posted on the Kearny Facebook page and taped up and down the glass doors of the town office.
Kearny is an extreme example of the water crunch facing communities across the West as states and cities stare down a future of “megadrought” and fight over scarce resources. An unusually dry winter this year left the Southwest parched, with not enough water for everyone laying claim to it. In the complex web of water rights that govern how that short supply is distributed, the tiny town of Kearny comes last.
Other cities around the West could face similar challenges and cutbacks. The federal government is set to release a planfor the shrinking supply of Colorado River water this summer that could force dramatic cuts. Kearny is not directly affected by the Colorado River negotiations, officials say, but its dilemma shows how dwindling resources — and water-rights rules that can feel arbitrary to those most affected — can upend daily life.
Kearny usually uses about 280 acre-feet of water a year; this year, it was allocated 77 acre-feet (one acre-footsupplies about three homes annually). Town officials realized they were on track to run out of water in July.
The crisis forced steep reductions in water use and now hangs over the town’s future, testing residents’ ability to adapt to shortage. It has also consumed much of Stacy’s final year in charge, giving him new gray hairs and new worries about his hometown, a community where everyone knows everyone and where you can get ahold of the mayor by walking into his office.
Stacy thought he had seen Kearny’s worst crisis in 2024, when a wildfire blazed toward the edge of town. He ran from house to house getting people out while embers blew above their heads. But the water shortage has been, in many ways, worse.
“It’s like a slow death,” Stacy said, “instead of an actual emergency happening right in front of your eyes where you can actually help.”
The town tried to prepare residents late last year for what was coming. In a Dec. 29 letter, officials warned that the reservoir fed by their primary water source, the Gila River, was running low.
The first question in the FAQ section was, “What happens if our allotment is zero?”
Answer: “Severe restrictions will be imposed.”
Light snowfall had left the reservoir, San Carlos Lake, at about 1 percent of its capacity, and Kearny’s rights to that small supply were “junior” to other communities under the complicated water-rights system laid out by a court in 1935, before the town was founded.
Soon, Kearny was on track to run out of water by midsummer.
“For years, they’ve been telling us that cutbacks were coming,” said Eric Armenta, Kearny’s public works director. “But it never did come until now. And it came drastically.”
In late March, Kearny imposed “Level 5″ restrictions on water — the most stringent possible. A declaration of emergency told residents they could use water only for the essentials; the mayor went door to door to convey the situation’s gravity. There would be no washing of cars, no kiddie pools, and no watering of grass. Even the Little League field would go dry.
“Laundry — wear it a second or even third day,” the mayor advised in another bulletin days later. “Bathing/Showers — no better time to connect with your significant other.”
“What is the Town doing about this?” he wrote in the next note. “This emergency is our entire focus.”
By the end of April, the message was sinking in and the town was using 30 percent less water. But when relief came later in the spring, town leaders were torn.
The authority that oversaw river rights had given Kearny extra water, but only because those with higher priority were not requesting water. The moment that changed, Kearny would need to cut back again.
The town council voted to go back to “Level 1” restrictions, which meant cutbacks were optional. “Flush, shower, keep the trees alive, launder your clothes, live a normal life again,” the mayor wrote.
Not everyone thought the reprieve was a good idea. “We knew exactly what was going to happen — people were just gonna use it freely,” said Armenta, the public works director.
Kearny was not yet in the clear.
Bits of grass around town were starting to turn green again in early July, but mostly the yards were still parched. Public works supervisor Jake Acton looked away when he drove by the Little League field — still dead and brown.
Kearny officials were no longer worried about running out of water in the short term, but their broader challenge lingered.
Fourth of July fireworks were canceled due to “dry conditions and limited water”; fire damage aside, Kearny could not afford the thousands of gallons it might take to put out a wildfire. And some officials worried news of their water woes would scare away businesses, scare away homeowners and make it even harder to recruit teachers.
Armenta stopped by an old rehabilitated well set to start pumping in a matter of weeks. No one knew how much it would produce until it started functioning, and they were trying not to get their hopes up.
“We want above 50 gallons per minute,” Armenta said over the roar of a machine clearing sand and debris. “Below that, it’s a waste of time.”
Armenta was spending some 90 hours a week, he said, on the public works job — a position he took early this year because he knew the city was headed for trouble. He did it because his family is here, and he doesn’t want to leave.
“My mom still lives here. My sister lives here. I want to live here,” he said. “My kids, I want them to be able to always come back to Kearny.”
At the bar across the street from the Little League field, people wondered when the monsoon season would bring some real rain. But everyone thought the town would get through the water crisis. When Kathy Taft asked her friend Dave Olsen if the town was “really going to run out of water,” Olsen answered without hesitation.
“No,” he said. “I just don’t see that happening.”
The well, when it began operating in mid-July, was a letdown. At 40 gallons a minute, it would cover only a fraction of the town’s need.
San Carlos Lake, meanwhile, remains close to empty. The lake closed to the public in June after it grew so dry that — in the words of the local recreation department — “approximately 100% of the fish population” died.
Now the mayor was worrying about 2027. If the lake didn’t recover, Kearny’s apportionment of river water next year could be zero.
“We got 77 [acre-feet] this year and we were able to stretch that,” Stacy said. “You can’t stretch zero.”
What then? There were still other avenues to try. Hydrologists were looking for well sites farther out; a local mining company could give Kearny some of its water. Wastewater could be put back into the ground and reused.
And the monsoon rains were picking up. Away on a trip to Minnesota, Stacy watched with interest as a flood watch went into effect for much of the Gila River Basin, which includes Kearny.
With some strong storms, the town’s fortunes could change again.
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