Revised On: Feb. 20, 2024 - 3:00 p.m.

In 1982, Republican House Majority Leader Burton Barr addressed the Arizona House Committee on Natural Resources and Energy, using powerful and direct language to discuss the matter at hand: the Environmental Quality Act. “In the history of state legislation,” Barr intoned, “this bill will be regarded as a landmark.”

And so it was,. In 1987, ADEQ was established as a separate, cabinet-level agency to administer the state’s environmental protection programs. The same legislation also established a comprehensive groundwater protection program and the state’s Water Quality Assurance Revolving Fund (WQARF), which cleans up contaminated sites that could harm human health.

Before ADEQ was formed, several offices within the Arizona Department of Health Services managed the state's environmental programs. During the last 25 years, ADEQ has grown from around 135 employees to an agency of more than 400 people supporting a wide range of environmental programs that protect the quality of Arizona's air, water, and land quality.

The agency has created rules and regulations necessary to administer state environmental protection laws and several programs delegated by the federal government, such as the Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act program.