Prescott Valley Arena In Trouble (Paulden: real estate, crime, construction)

[Esenjay]

You guys are residents in the area and pay for water, right? If you look at your own water usage, what does it come out to for the household? You have your own specific statistics you can refer to rather than vague or misleading broad generalizations. How about the facts of your own first-hand knowledge--what does that suggest to you?

[BriansPerspective]

Originally Posted by DellNec

Per the EPA, the avg. household uses 12,000 gallons of water per month:
Indoor Water Use in the United States | WaterSense | US EPA

Here is WHY I believe the Courier is off on their stats. They are getting the 3,000 gallons based on PER PERSON. Also, they are factoring in homes that are vacant and averaging them to get the 3,000 gallons per month. Their estimates are way off.

A family of four living in a single family home will never see 3,000 gallons of water per month. More like 12,000 gallons per month.

A single person living in a home, would probably see 3,000 gallons per month of usage. In reality, 3,000 gallons of water per month is not that much water when you factor in showers, toilets, sinks, landscape and the such.

So when a family of four is paying $100+ dollars a month in water fees, that is a lot of money. If this pipeline goes over budget, which it will, those fees could easily increase to $150 a month for 12,000 gallons of water usage per month. $150 a month for water is expensive.

The EPA is averaging across the entire US, including wet areas where people water lawns daily. Prescott and Prescott Valley are in the desert where the primary landscaping is rock. Our family of two uses less than 3,000 gallons per month.

In any case, my point is that water is a precious resource and should be priced as such to entice people to conserve. How much is a typical cable bill? $100, $150? People do not blink an eye at spending $100 per month on cable TV. Today, water is essentially free. How much is a typical water bill? $20, $30, $40? It's pocket change compared to what most families spend on entertainment. If people using excessive amounts of water were charged for it, they might make a better effort at conserving it.

[DellNec]

Originally Posted by BriansPerspective

The EPA is averaging across the entire US, including wet areas where people water lawns daily. Prescott and Prescott Valley are in the desert where the primary landscaping is rock. Our family of two uses less than 3,000 gallons per month.

If 2 people living in a home on a regular basis, can use less than 3,000 gallons per month, my hats off to you.

Many areas use "reclaimed water" for the landscaping. Prescott, CV and PV should do the same also. I know many golf courses out here use it. As golf courses use 1,000,000 gallons per day. Prescott & PV have a lot of golf course areas.

I have a family of 4 and we use 12,000 gallons of water a month. I do not have a lawn, mostly rock and xeriscape. The average was always around 3,000 gallons PER PERSON, per month, of water use in a household.

Using water saving devices, just taking a 10 minute shower uses around 50-75 gallons of water. A loaded washing machine takes around 60 gallons of water. Washing dishes takes around 10-20 gallons. Flushing a toilet takes around 3-5 gallons of water.

All of this water use adds up. Hopefully people are not cutting back on their shower use, as that would make Prescottonians a smelly bunch.

[Esenjay]

There are various water-saving shower heads that have a 1.5-3 GPM flow. Toilets typically use 3-5 gallons per flush, and watersaving varieties can use less than 3. Regular checks of pipes/faucets to prevent leaks will save a large amount of water as well. Does not seem unreasonable for a family of 4 to use less than 12,000 gallons per month, especially with low-level landscaping.

[DellNec]

In addition to the already quoted EPA estimates of 12,000 gallons per month for a household of 4 people. The USGS (United States Geological Survey) also estimates that each person in a home would use 80-100 gallons per day. That would be around 9,600 - 12,000 gallons per month. Not including any landscaping.

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/qahome.html


Anyone with kids, using less than 12,000 gallons per month, is next to impossible. Unless you don't wash their clothes very often, they don't bathe every day, you don't wash dishes (use disposable paper plates) and they don't use the bathroom.

Once again, if a household of 2 people, who reside there on a regular basis. Using less than 3,000 gallons a month is very, very low and not the average. Just taking a shower everyday (energy conserving shower head @ 4GPM for 10 minutes), would consume 40 gallons of water x 2 people = 80 gallons a day x 30 days = 2,400 gallons a month just for showering. You still have not counted the toilets flushing, dish washing, hand washing, laundry, cooking, landscape, misc use, etc.

And this is being conservative as most people take 15 minute long showers, sometimes more than once a day, and most shower heads put out more than 4GPM.

Unless those people are not washing their hands and taking a shower every other day (they would start to smell bad), and they are using an outhouse, I just don't see it.

When it's hot out, we shower more than once a day. In the morning and then in the evening. Not to mention doing laundry more often. Last month we hit almost 16,000 gallons of water for that month.

[LinaJo76]

Yeah, I know. And it's such a small town, we really didn't need one. And they were so expensive on their events there too. Yeah, if you don't have one of those big signs, then nobody knows what event is going on (I never, hardly did. Just by word of mouth).

[BriansPerspective]

So, back to my original question... How can we reach safe yield without importing water?

[smilinpretty]

Brian, I don't know if it was you or not, but I remember someone posted that there is all kinds of water outside of CV, some kind of underwater river.
Maybe I read it wrong. Gee, we pay $50 for water..and we conserve allot. We are on a fixed income.

[ZonyPony]

This message has been deleted by ElkHunter. Reason: Nope, not orhaned

[BriansPerspective]

Originally Posted by smilinpretty

Brian, I don't know if it was you or not, but I remember someone posted that there is all kinds of water outside of CV, some kind of underwater river.
Maybe I read it wrong. Gee, we pay $50 for water..and we conserve allot. We are on a fixed income.

Hey Smilin', I'm not advocating high water bills for everyone. All I'm suggesting is that the cities figure out what a reasonable amount of water is per household (could be 12,000 gallons per month) and then sky-rocket the price above that to encourage people to not waste water with grass and other water-intensive plants.

Regarding the underground river... The Big Chino aquifer contains 15 MILLION acre-feet of water. P and PV want to withdraw 8,500 acre-feet per year (which they are legally entitled to). That is 0.05% of the water in the aquifer. By contrast, the base-flow of the Verde River, which originates from the Big Chino aquifer, is 150,000 acre-feet per year or 1% of the water in the aquifer.