Future of Water in the Southwest vs. Retirement Plans

[Lando]

Phoenix has 5 million people. It is in the middle of the desert. 5 million people in the middle of the desert, no local water. What could go wrong?

This is simply not true. The Gila, Salt and Verde have more than enough water for Phoenix residential, just not enough for farming. Farms will run dry long before residential does.

 

[sasquatch]

People pi** critical resources away like it’s nothing, watering yards is the easiest one to see. “We love our green yard” so much so they’d let themselves go broke over it and or starve their neighbor of thirst to have it. We care about looks more than reality these days.

We have water problems because we have population problems. Yet what do we do?? Travel around giving clean drinking water to places that don’t have it already, so they they can keep populating making the situation actually worse over time.

Our feelings and emotions, one day will lead us into crisis.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Fatcamp]

I'm just here to bring golf courses into the conversation.

 

[WV Mountaineer]

Everyone understands their need for water, but it's rare that someone from east of the MS and even west of it a little way, understands the difference between water supply in the West and where they are from. I'd never heard of a water attorney before moving to Colorado.

You can't just pop a well in anywhere without significantly more permitting than back East and even then there's the possibility of no water, or insufficient water, regardless how deep you drill. Some regions much worse than others. The tap fees onto county or city water are something that is unexpected also. I'm not sure what it is everywhere but in my home community in Southern IL it was under $500 when I did it in the mid 90s. When I moved to CO in mid 2000s, a new house was paying thousands to tie in based off their calculated use.

Folks in the east are used to building ponds wherever they feel like it on their property. That doesn't always fly here unless you own rights to the water in a basin that you are holding water up in. Owning the land is not equivalent to owning water rights. That surface water may well belong to someone downstream. You may think you'll do whatever you want on your land but damn up water flow from someone downstream that has senior water rights and you'll soon learn it's not your water. Ask Colorado about its South Republican Management Area. I believe that's where Kansas challenged them in court and CO was forced to release the water in their existing reservoir.

Also, If you don't use the water rights that you own, they can be taken. I don't know all the legal dealings required but you don't use it, you can lose it.

Water is a big deal everywhere, but it's taken for granted in places with plenty.

It’s not taken for granted at all. Just the opposite. It’s as most of the posters on this thread have stated. People who choose to stay where water is uncertain are guilty of taking it for granted. Not those that live around it.

 

[4rcgoat]

I'm just here to bring golf courses into the conversation.

View attachment 548490

Whenever I see a big ,beautiful golf course, with all the smooth undulating landscape,all I can think is how cool it would be to turn it into a motocross track.

 

[CHWine]

5 million people living in Phoenix is just wrong on so many levels. I think how how much electricity is used from May to October in AC. They're still building like there's no tomorrow and building more golf courses too. I don't know much about it but I'm told there's A couple of huge new chip factories under construction. I hear those things need ton of water for production.

 

[Forestryguy]

It will be interesting to see where population centers shift once the Boomer generation has mostly passed on. We are already seeing a decrease in births in the US and a decrease in life span. With the last larger generations passing on that have more surplus money than other generations, I think priorities will shift.

Just cause there is water in a place doesn't necessarily mean that it is drinkable either, a lot of the mid-west. We have a lot of run off from crop ground, confinements and lawns. Where I am at it is mostly sandy soil, so there is a lot of movement of pollutants. They are constantly finding new areas affects by PFAS. Most people now have softnere and reverse osmosis systems to try and keep water safer. Im not sure how much it all really works, since there seems to be a large prevalence of cancers starting around age 45. Our other issue is the amount of salt that input down every winter. It is Metric tons. But they won't decrease the amount since people won't slow down when the weather is bad and get legislatures involved to make roads safer.

We are working on decreasing our water use, since we are on a well. I only water the back yard regularly, mainly due to the garden being there. I will water the front if we go a long period without rain, but just enough to keep it alive and that it does not turn into a complete sandbox. I am hoping to turn part of the front yard back to native pollinating plants at some point. I am also going to eventually only irrigate the garden with drip irrigation.

 

[aftriathlete]

Facing Drought, Western States Seek to Deny Groundwater to Foreigners

Water and agricultural experts warn that bans ignore the global market.

www.pewtrusts.org

Here’s one recent summary of the situation in the agricultural exploitation of groundwater side of things. This does not address the Colorado River capacity issue, although there has been a lot written recently about that. Also doesn’t address what a lot of people have mentioned in this thread so far, which is just the idea of too many people in the desert parts of the country for the resources available. With the info in this linked article it seems like there is a lot of room for improvement on policy that would make things more sustainable in that part of the country.

I love AZ, spent 3 years there in the last decade, and it puts us close to our kids’ grandparents, so I’m really hoping some reasonable policy changes and interstate agreements happen to address the long-term water prospects.

 

[Yoder]

If water is such a problem, why are they building all of the semiconductor factories there? They use millions of gallons of water a year.

 

[RS_Non-Res]

The water quality discharged by chip fabs exceeds drinking water standards. Water is considered consumed when it is spread on the ground (ag/golf) and evaporates, not when it is reinjected or returned to streamflow (WWTP). Chip companies can buy enough water right to operate by closing a few farms.

I had a job where were were buying ag water rights discretely so our demand wouldn't increase the price. When the local farmers finally found out we were buying, so many of them wanted out of farming that the price plummeted and we got all the water right we needed for a fraction of the budget.

Really - Put people in the desert and put farms where there is soil. Run a pipeline if it's really needed.
The SW water utilities have 30-year plans. All plans include developing supply and reducing usage, and none of those plans end in catastrophe.

 

[Johnny Tyndall]

I wouldn't worry too much about water availability for people. People use way less than ag, pay more for it, and residential water use is non-consumptive. What I would expect is it might get pricy, you will be dealing with municipal water use restrictions (no lawns, restricted hours for watering, etc...), and you will hear about it al the time (its a sensational topic). There is a ton of hard work to do managing water in the SW, a ton, but the cities will always be priority users and I don't think it'll end up hitting the residential consumer too much. Very unlikely you'll turn on you tap and nothing comes out. If you're considering your own well, that's different.

The semiconductor one is interesting. They actually use recycled wastewater a lot of the time. You can clean up poop water into the highest purity needed by industry (waaaay cleaner than potable water, in fact so clean it's dangerous to drink), but we're not ready to start putting it into the taps yet.

 

[ramsdude47]

I wouldn’t count on “a 30 year plan” meaning anything.

I will personally be shocked if AZ doesn’t have a mass exodus due to a legitimate water crisis at some point in my lifetime. I considered a move to AZ (from CO), but lack of water/sustainability ruled it out for me.

 

[GSPHUNTER]

Water usage other than residential is directly effected by population. higher population requires higher water usage for Agriculture, and everything humans require to survive. The amount of water on this planet has virtually not change in eons. Natural distribution on the other hand changes often, as does the state of the water, liquid water, ice and vapor.