Skunk Creek runs dry after ten weeks of severe drought

August 5, 2026

Skunk Creek, near its confluence with the Agua Fria and Salt rivers, is running essentially dry. The USGS gauge there is reading close to zero cubic feet per second, with gage height under a foot and only one or two readings logged for the entire past week, a sign that flow has dropped so low it sits near the edge of what the instrument can reliably register.

This did not happen overnight. Maricopa County spent ten straight weeks, from mid-May into late July, with 97 percent or more of the county locked in severe drought or worse. The past week is the first real crack in that stretch, with coverage easing to around 80 percent, still severe, but a meaningful drop in a single week. Skunk Creek's dry bed is what that ten-week siege looks like on the ground: an ephemeral desert wash that depends entirely on seasonal flow has simply run out of water to carry.

It is worth being clear about what this is not. None of the nearby water bodies, including Skunk Creek, Cave Creek, the Arizona Canal, and Cortez Park Lake, are listed as impaired, and permitted dischargers upstream show no significant compliance failures. This is a drought story, not a pollution story.

Groups such as the Arizona Land And Water Conservancy work on water and land conservation in this stretch of the valley, exactly the kind of low-flow, high-heat conditions where every bit of protected riparian buffer matters most for whatever wildlife is still finding water nearby.

Data from U.S. Drought Monitor (NIDIS / drought.gov), EPA ATTAINS (303(d) impaired waters), EPA ECHO, Speak for the Trees org directory and USGS

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