6 Years of Water Left (Phoenix, Tucson: 2013, credit, landscaping)

[Prickly Pear]

Originally Posted by jlawrence01

I hear more panic from people on City-Data than I hear when I attend water management board meetings and lectures from hydrologists at the University of Arizona.

This.

Also OP, counties vary on how much they rely on the CAP. Some of the far northern counties for an example are almost 100% reliant on the CAP. Phoenix and Tucson less so.

Part of me hopes the drought gets worse to discourage others from moving here. Leave it for the people who don't mind taking short showers and have no need for a grass yard. Sick of people moving to Arizona and trying to make it something it isn't. Maybe it'll scare the retirees into Florida and stop some of our endless sprawl and UHI which actually does affect our precipitation a little bit. Sick of people moving here for usually cheap housing and no snow and no humidity and then complaining about everything Arizona offers. It makes Arizona look like a used diaper in comparison to the rest of the country, we should have residents who are proud to live here, not necessarily to the level of Texans but it shouldn't be an overwhelming amount of residents who think the state is crap. These transplants have been a stain on Arizona and Phoenix in particular, they have changed Arizona into a hot, republican Midwest state and it will never be back to the way it used to be. But when the drought does get worse, and it will, all these transplants will go back to the lives they left behind with zero guilt in contributing to what Arizona will become and leave us with hundreds maybe even thousands of empty homes and a broken economy. Phoenix will be a Detroit 2.0. Meanwhile some of us natives, who have had our entire lives entrenched in this state will be screwed trying to bring us back to a good place.

[lvmensch]

Originally Posted by Raven_on_a_Coyote

More writing on the subject

The causes of Lake Mead's expanding bathtub ring -

You still appear to be hanging crape to no good end. The original article and the NY Times article on which it was based are two years old. There has actually been some progress since then.

It is likely that there will need to be some large adjustments in the usage of western water. It is more complex politically than it is in reality. The problem deals more with western water law than with the realities of water. For instance CA growers buy water for unbelievably low prices. Simply creating a surcharge on water use including a buyout of rights for those who have them could alleviate much if not all of the Colorado River problem.

To a large degree it is CA that creates and perpetuates the problem via western water law. The CA growers have always had a legal right to far more water than is actually available. The Colorado River Compact was really a negotiation to more fairly divide the water. But they actually allocated more than was available. The one who got screwed worse was actually Mexico abut it is unlikely any US administration will want to fix that. And CA is still the big gorilla with its immense population and pull in the Federal government.

Even today it is likely possible to save a great deal of water by reducing the area while increasing the depth of the reservoirs. Has implications on power production but could probably be managed.

[jlawrence01]

Originally Posted by :-D

Part of me hopes the drought gets worse to discourage others from moving here. Leave it for the people who don't mind taking short showers and have no need for a grass yard. Sick of people moving to Arizona and trying to make it something it isn't. Maybe it'll scare the retirees into Florida and stop some of our endless sprawl and UHI which actually does affect our precipitation a little bit. Sick of people moving here for usually cheap housing and no snow and no humidity and then complaining about everything Arizona offers. It makes Arizona look like a used diaper in comparison to the rest of the country, we should have residents who are proud to live here, not necessarily to the level of Texans but it shouldn't be an overwhelming amount of residents who think the state is crap. These transplants have been a stain on Arizona and Phoenix in particular, they have changed Arizona into a hot, republican Midwest state and it will never be back to the way it used to be. But when the drought does get worse, and it will, all these transplants will go back to the lives they left behind with zero guilt in contributing to what Arizona will become and leave us with hundreds maybe even thousands of empty homes and a broken economy. Phoenix will be a Detroit 2.0. Meanwhile some of us natives, who have had our entire lives entrenched in this state will be screwed trying to bring us back to a good place.

It is not the Midwesterns who are trying to grow alfalfa and other grain crops in the desert.
Or place green lawns in the old established neighborhoods of Phoenix.

Or have the 3 gallon per flush toilets that are prevalent in many public buildings in Tucson - I thought those went away in the 1990s. The plumbing in much of this state is 20-30 years behind.

Or are diverting water to mine LOW-GRADE copper ore around the state.

[Raven_on_a_Coyote]

Originally Posted by :-D

This.

Also OP, counties vary on how much they rely on the CAP. Some of the far northern counties for an example are almost 100% reliant on the CAP. Phoenix and Tucson less so.

Part of me hopes the drought gets worse to discourage others from moving here. Leave it for the people who don't mind taking short showers and have no need for a grass yard. Sick of people moving to Arizona and trying to make it something it isn't. .

On people moving here and making this land something it is not: One word for you: Yavapai

And I am sure that i use less water than 97% of the people in Arizona.

In part I posted this do people have some reality of the challenges that are facing the southwest. Climate change is causing not only drought but faster evaporation of surface water from the Colorado river basin. If there was no climate change I would not be as chatty about all this.

But where are all those people in the area going to move and work in the 100% CAP areas if the water stops? There are already cities in AZ where the taps have gone dry. It will take politics and money to manage all this change, and AZ does not have either.

[JGMotorsport64]

Originally Posted by Raven_on_a_Coyote

On people moving here and making this land something it is not: One word for you: Yavapai

And I am sure that i use less water than 97% of the people in Arizona.

In part I posted this do people have some reality of the challenges that are facing the southwest. Climate change is causing not only drought but faster evaporation of surface water from the Colorado river basin. If there was no climate change I would not be as chatty about all this.

But where are all those people in the area going to move and work in the 100% CAP areas if the water stops? There are already cities in AZ where the taps have gone dry. It will take politics and money to manage all this change, and AZ does not have either.

But you're getting a little ahead of yourself and calling for doomsday. The taps aren't running dry and we have an extensive infastructure in place. I dabble in water law, it's fascinating.

Baby steps. For example Phoenix uses less water today than it did in the 50s when it was sustained via Salt River alone.

Right now we're at only the preliminary stages.

If you want to know a real threat I'll post about it when I have the info infront of me. But it's about Navajo Nation and their unsubstantiated rights to significant amounts of the Colorado River. It's called Practical Irrigable Acreage. It's a federal issue granting water rights to tribes. They have a lot of land that is practicably Irrigable, and the right to the water is determined on that standard. It hasn't yet been determined exactly how much that entails, but it's a lot and unaccounted for.

[Raven_on_a_Coyote]

Is the water use in Pheonix lower per capita or lower in total. It could be lower per capita but we are using a lot more water.

Also, the taps have run dry in one area for a short time:
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/...ures/84597626/

[JGMotorsport64]

Originally Posted by Raven_on_a_Coyote

Is the water use in Pheonix lower per capita or lower in total. It could be lower per capita but we are using a lot more water.

Also, the taps have run dry in one area for a short time:
Arizona utility regulators spar over emergency water measures

Total use, it's the result of replacing farmland with housing. Agriculture uses substantially more than residential plats, this city used to be very green.

[SageCats]

Why not import water from Texas (Houston area) to relieve their flooding and help states which need water?
I've heard it's too expensive but wouldn't bringing water from the ocean or Mexico as that article states be just as expensive, if not more? Also, isn't desalination extremely toxic? At least the water coming from high flood areas isn't as salinated and can be purified...

[Raven_on_a_Coyote]

Originally Posted by JGMotorsport64

Total use, it's the result of replacing farmland with housing. Agriculture uses substantially more than residential plats, this city used to be very green.

Sorry, according to this total water use is the same since 1957
Arizona's Water Use Has Remained The Same Since The 1950s | KJZZ

And according to this the total water use for Tucson as a whole is higher.
https://wrrc.arizona.edu/sites/wrrc....les/Tenney.pdf

I can find no data for historical Pheonix water use.

[JGMotorsport64]

Originally Posted by Raven_on_a_Coyote

Sorry, according to this total water use is the same since 1957
Arizona's Water Use Has Remained The Same Since The 1950s | KJZZ

And according to this the total water use for Tucson as a whole is higher.
https://wrrc.arizona.edu/sites/wrrc....les/Tenney.pdf

I can find no data for historical Pheonix water use.

So the same since 1957 by one source. That's with millions more people and no CAP. I can tell you by some measures it's even less. You gotta understand the history of this area first.

Tucson is another animal and a problem onto itself. It would struggle more.