By Sam Williams

The early native farmers and Hohokam used the Santa Cruz surface water to supply their crops. With it they made maize which they used for many purposes including food, weaving and other useful items The Hohokam also made canals to divert the river flow

After the Hohokam came the Tohono O’odham. They used the water much for the same uses as the Hohokam. They treated the water like their own children and took the water and made it potable enough to drink. They still live off that water today even though it has mostly been taken by the Americans.

In the 1694 Father Kino and his Spanish settlers came to Arizona to try and teach the Tohono O’odham and other Native tribes Christianity. Soon Spanish settlements were being established and more and more water was being used and since Arizona is a desert, less and less of it was available for use because of evaporation. At this time with the Spanish and evaporation combined the rivers started depleting making it harder for the water cycle to keep flowing Kino established missionaries in the area and more settlers moved in.

Many discoveries were made on water in the 19 th century including artesian wells, pumps into the aquifer and the discovery of ground water. These discoveries especially the artesian wells and the pumps depleted the water in Arizona even more. The water table which tells us the water level in the ground was established during this time. We discovered that pumping water from the aquifer lowers the water levels in the rivers including ones like the Santa Cruz which created even more problems Also many water laws were created during this time like prior appropriation and the riparian water rights law, which created a way to solve the water cases in Arizona but they created no actual protection for rivers like the Santa Cruz