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This is an incredibly shortsighted outlook on Arizona's reckless water usage. The bulk of our water comes from the Colorado River which is a lifeline for not ju

by gwynn 7y ago

This is an incredibly shortsighted outlook on Arizona's reckless water usage. The bulk of our water comes from the Colorado River which is a lifeline for not just us, but for over 40 million people across six different rapidly growing states. Snowpack for the river is at its lowest level in 30+ years and is projected to decrease an additional 30% due to climate change over the next two decades. As a lower-basin state, we are "investing" water which we don't actually own. Sooner or later lake Mead is going to hit an elevation of 1,075ft and the federal government will mandate that lower-basin states such as our own face the music. Will it be our blood or the state's billions that suffer? To avoid this future, all we must do is work together to scale-down our agricultural industry in favor of other economic avenues. This pointless "calculated risk" which threatens the future of America's fifth largest city and its surrounding neighbors can be undone. Sadly, I fear that the current administration under Doug Ducey cares more about leafy greens than our children's future.

Finnucane 7y ago
The obvious solution is build more housing.
- gwynn 7y ago
  I agree with your point that there's blame to go around. I believe that Bobby from King Of The Hill said it best "This city should not exist. It is a monument to man's arrogance."
  - hueving 7y ago
    That's idiotic. Phoenix makes as much sense as Los Angeles and there is plenty of water from the Colorado River feeding both cities. It takes less energy to air condition Phoenix during the summer than Minneapolis takes to heat in the winter (temperature gap desired maxes 50F vs 100F). Additionally, the energy it does take is much more amenable to being fulfilled by cheap solar than the cycle required by heating at night. The only people who find it arrogant are ones who do not understand air conditioning is cheaper than heating and that water can be moved in aqueducts. Nobody claims that Chicago should not exist, nor Minneapolis, nor New York. The only difference is that they depend on older heating methods instead of air conditioning.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > Phoenix makes as much sense as Los Angeles This is true, but in the exact opposite sense you intend it.
      - hueving 7y ago
        You don't know my intent. My point is that most of the people that bitch about Phoenix are fine with the existence of Los Angeles. The remaining bit are too dumb to realize it's more energy efficient than the heat suckers of the North.
slimsag 7y ago
The bulk of our water usage does _not_ come from the Colorado River. 36% does. The bulk, 64% of our water (2018), comes from our groundwater aquifers and in-state rivers (and 3% reclaimed) according to ADWR [1] Yes, it's still important and I agree we should diversify our economy away from agriculture, but that is not something you can just do immediately especially when the citizens that industry is supporting are under-supported by both the community and the U.S. government as a whole. I will not blame people immigrating to the U.S. for relying on one of the only jobs they can get to put food on their tables while our government actively tries to persecute and deport them, and our citizens inactively support them. These people need our agricultural industry to live, and until we give them a replacement somehow we are SOL. [1] http://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts http://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts
- klenwell 7y ago
  Did you read the article? It was impressively reported and provided a comprehensive account of the problem from a white working class family that relocated to the area and had their well run dry to the backroom discussions in the Arizona legislature that will ultimately dictate the future of industry and environment. You're right that the Colorado River is irrelevant to the issue under discussion here. But the article clearly shows that the aquifers are as big a crisis: In the late 1990s, during the first few years of what would eventually turn out to be a 19-year-and-counting Arizona drought, only about 15,000 acre-feet of water were estimated to have percolated into the aquifer each year, while 100,000 were being pumped out; as the valley continued to warm throughout the 2000s and 2010s, with rainfall and snowmelt plummeting, estimates for recharge went unrecorded, as annual pumping soared to 200,000 acre feet. Once, it had been possible for ranchers to develop natural springs into watering holes using only a shovel. Now, after watching water levels drop 100 to 300 feet in 35 years, some farmers wondered how long they could go on... In 2017 alone, one farm pumped 22 billion gallons, nearly double the volume of bottled water sold in the United States annually. Immigrant laborers and immigration are largely a non sequitur. They're cannon fodder in this battle and scarcely mentioned in the article. They have no say in it. Unless you're talking perhaps about Middle Eastern farming corporations. This is a battle between relatively prosperous local small farmers and bigger corporations: Arizona was particularly attractive to Middle Eastern farmers. A policy of unregulated pumping on the Arabian Peninsula had, in 40 years, drained aquifers that had taken 20,000 years to form, leaving thousands of acres fallow and forcing Saudi Arabia and others to outsource much of their agricultural production. In 2014, a Saudi Arabian-owned company, the Almarai Corporation, bought 10,000 acres in the town of Vicksburg, northwest of Sulphur Springs Valley, planting alfalfa to ship halfway around the world to feed Saudi cattle. Then, a United Arab Emirates farming corporation, Al Dahra, bought several thousand-acre farms along both sides of the Arizona-California border. These purchases were perfectly legal, but many residents felt these newcomers were essentially “exporting water.”
sharms 7y ago
I am not a expert in this, but I believe the snowpack is 130% above average for the Colorado River: https://www.cpr.org/2019/04/19/healthy-snowpack-in-the-colorado-river-basin-is-improving-reservoirs-across-multiple-states/ https://www.cpr.org/2019/04/19/healthy-snowpack-in-the-color...

by gwynn 7y ago

Finnucane 7y ago

The obvious solution is build more housing.

gwynn 7y ago
I agree with your point that there's blame to go around. I believe that Bobby from King Of The Hill said it best "This city should not exist. It is a monument to man's arrogance."
- hueving 7y ago
  That's idiotic. Phoenix makes as much sense as Los Angeles and there is plenty of water from the Colorado River feeding both cities. It takes less energy to air condition Phoenix during the summer than Minneapolis takes to heat in the winter (temperature gap desired maxes 50F vs 100F). Additionally, the energy it does take is much more amenable to being fulfilled by cheap solar than the cycle required by heating at night. The only people who find it arrogant are ones who do not understand air conditioning is cheaper than heating and that water can be moved in aqueducts. Nobody claims that Chicago should not exist, nor Minneapolis, nor New York. The only difference is that they depend on older heating methods instead of air conditioning.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Phoenix makes as much sense as Los Angeles This is true, but in the exact opposite sense you intend it.
    - hueving 7y ago
      You don't know my intent. My point is that most of the people that bitch about Phoenix are fine with the existence of Los Angeles. The remaining bit are too dumb to realize it's more energy efficient than the heat suckers of the North.

slimsag 7y ago

The bulk of our water usage does _not_ come from the Colorado River. 36% does. The bulk, 64% of our water (2018), comes from our groundwater aquifers and in-state rivers (and 3% reclaimed) according to ADWR [1] Yes, it's still important and I agree we should diversify our economy away from agriculture, but that is not something you can just do immediately especially when the citizens that industry is supporting are under-supported by both the community and the U.S. government as a whole. I will not blame people immigrating to the U.S. for relying on one of the only jobs they can get to put food on their tables while our government actively tries to persecute and deport them, and our citizens inactively support them. These people need our agricultural industry to live, and until we give them a replacement somehow we are SOL. [1] http://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts http://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts

klenwell 7y ago
Did you read the article? It was impressively reported and provided a comprehensive account of the problem from a white working class family that relocated to the area and had their well run dry to the backroom discussions in the Arizona legislature that will ultimately dictate the future of industry and environment. You're right that the Colorado River is irrelevant to the issue under discussion here. But the article clearly shows that the aquifers are as big a crisis: In the late 1990s, during the first few years of what would eventually turn out to be a 19-year-and-counting Arizona drought, only about 15,000 acre-feet of water were estimated to have percolated into the aquifer each year, while 100,000 were being pumped out; as the valley continued to warm throughout the 2000s and 2010s, with rainfall and snowmelt plummeting, estimates for recharge went unrecorded, as annual pumping soared to 200,000 acre feet. Once, it had been possible for ranchers to develop natural springs into watering holes using only a shovel. Now, after watching water levels drop 100 to 300 feet in 35 years, some farmers wondered how long they could go on... In 2017 alone, one farm pumped 22 billion gallons, nearly double the volume of bottled water sold in the United States annually. Immigrant laborers and immigration are largely a non sequitur. They're cannon fodder in this battle and scarcely mentioned in the article. They have no say in it. Unless you're talking perhaps about Middle Eastern farming corporations. This is a battle between relatively prosperous local small farmers and bigger corporations: Arizona was particularly attractive to Middle Eastern farmers. A policy of unregulated pumping on the Arabian Peninsula had, in 40 years, drained aquifers that had taken 20,000 years to form, leaving thousands of acres fallow and forcing Saudi Arabia and others to outsource much of their agricultural production. In 2014, a Saudi Arabian-owned company, the Almarai Corporation, bought 10,000 acres in the town of Vicksburg, northwest of Sulphur Springs Valley, planting alfalfa to ship halfway around the world to feed Saudi cattle. Then, a United Arab Emirates farming corporation, Al Dahra, bought several thousand-acre farms along both sides of the Arizona-California border. These purchases were perfectly legal, but many residents felt these newcomers were essentially “exporting water.”

sharms 7y ago

I am not a expert in this, but I believe the snowpack is 130% above average for the Colorado River: https://www.cpr.org/2019/04/19/healthy-snowpack-in-the-colorado-river-basin-is-improving-reservoirs-across-multiple-states/ https://www.cpr.org/2019/04/19/healthy-snowpack-in-the-color...