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As to the per capita use by state. All states do not report the same numbers. Some subtract credits for water returned to the system. There is no national standard for per capita water use by state.
For agriculture quit thinking about how they do it now. Think about how it could be done. GMOs use much less water. I've seen some articles that say 70% less. They are not dangerous. We have been eating them our entire lives.
People didn't believe we could make a product in China, ship it to a town in the USA and do it cheaper than making it in that town. Don't tell me we can't do that with lettuce when it is only a one day truck drive away.
Did anyone ever think that a company that started by selling books on the internet would turn into the Amazon we know today? Think outside the box. There is a way to fix things but some people are just too stubborn and are too resistant to change.
Next year AZ water is getting cut by 18%, going by the news. When the leaders of AZ say they have a drought plan ready , I don't believe it. If they did they wouldn't be making such a big deal about it right now.
Next year AZ water is getting cut by 18%, going by the news. When the leaders of AZ say they have a drought plan ready , I don't believe it. If they did they wouldn't be making such a big deal about it right now.
The news is making a big deal about it. The reduction in water can be offset to an extent for the farms/ranches somewhat but anyone on strictly CAP access is gonna hurt. So under an agreement from 1922, AZ and NV get cut but CA keeps their allocation...I'll leave that one alone right now but you can look at what the State of CA has done to their farmers/ranchers in regards to water access.
What does that mean for our farms? A lot. Fields are going to be fallowed, dairies are going to need to import feed from other states...can't grow on fields that can't be watered.
Since golf courses are not residential, it would not include them. The USGS tracks water use in multiple different ways to account for such huge differences in water demand.
Golf courses are considered under the “irrigation” category at the USGS: “ Irrigation of golf courses, parks, nurseries, turf farms, cemeteries, and other self-supplied landscape-watering uses also are included in USGS irrigation estimates.” So no that 150 GPCD does not include golf courses. Strictly residential property. Irrigation would also include something like a cotton farm, which makes sense.
As to the per capita use by state. All states do not report the same numbers. Some subtract credits for water returned to the system. There is no national standard for per capita water use by state.
For agriculture quit thinking about how they do it now. Think about how it could be done. GMOs use much less water. I've seen some articles that say 70% less. They are not dangerous. We have been eating them our entire lives.
People didn't believe we could make a product in China, ship it to a town in the USA and do it cheaper than making it in that town. Don't tell me we can't do that with lettuce when it is only a one day truck drive away.
Did anyone ever think that a company that started by selling books on the internet would turn into the Amazon we know today? Think outside the box. There is a way to fix things but some people are just too stubborn and are too resistant to change.
There is absolutely zero water returned to the system. Once the water passes the service meter it is considered used (water passing the service meter is what one gets billed at) and has to go to wastewater treatment. That includes water coming out of the sprinklers, your hose, your kitchen sink and your refrigerator.
It is against Federal law for used water to return to the drinking water supply without following certain treatment requirements.
I be curious how Arizona handles droughts as compared to California, there was a lot of fear mongling by the media and picking on the little guys in terms of penalities while the big guys waste away in California during our last drought. But this year I guess due to COVID the drought has gathered little attention. And this time they decided to focus on argricultural water use rather than residential water use. Though I hope they target those industrial and almond farms first as opposed to mom and pop organic farms.
There is absolutely zero water returned to the system. Once the water passes the service meter it is considered used (water passing the service meter is what one gets billed at) and has to go to wastewater treatment. That includes water coming out of the sprinklers, your hose, your kitchen sink and your refrigerator.
It is against Federal law for used water to return to the drinking water supply without following certain treatment requirements.
There is some indirect potable reuse in the form of recharge that is blended in the aquifer and then withdrawn - Tres Rios Project. Scottsdale Water is a demonstration project (may be further along than that now) of direct potable reuse. It's better quality than bottled water and they even held an event where craft brewers made beer out of it for a tasting. So it's coming.
It kind of stokes my ire when I see people making remarks about Arizona neglecting and being unprepared for water supply issues. I worked in this field in my career and on some of the local recharge projects. Arizona has a long history as a leader in this area. We are much better prepared for the coming shortages than most states are.
There is some indirect potable reuse in the form of recharge that is blended in the aquifer and then withdrawn - Tres Rios Project. Scottsdale Water is a demonstration project (may be further along than that now) of direct potable reuse. It's better quality than bottled water and they even held an event where craft brewers made beer out of it for a tasting. So it's coming.
It kind of stokes my ire when I see people making remarks about Arizona neglecting and being unprepared for water supply issues. I worked in this field in my career and on some of the local recharge projects. Arizona has a long history as a leader in this area. We are much better prepared for the coming shortages than most states are.
^^^This and 100x this^^^
I worked for SRP many moons ago. Water in AZ has been a top of mind issue for State Leaders, Businesses that work in the field and Water Rights Holders for decades. Yes, this drought is worse that it has been but there are systems in place that will and do buffer the effect of long term drought. This is not like a well drying up. The Colorado River system is hurting right now and La Nina is probably not going to help the amount of snowfall in the Rockies to help offset that this year. But that is just one source for water in AZ and not the main source for the more populated areas of the state.
Funny how everyone trusts the government on some issues but not others. Our lakes and dams across the state have been built for specific reasons...and they work. Sure the water levels go down but they also rise after weather events. There is ground water banking, water treatment, diverted usage of non-POTable (untreated) water...the lists go on. A reduction in CAP water flow will affect agriculture, no doubt, but many of the other systems have plenty of water.
I am sure we could go into a discussion of the fear mongering tactics of the news media but I think we all know...bad news sells.
There is some indirect potable reuse in the form of recharge that is blended in the aquifer and then withdrawn - Tres Rios Project. Scottsdale Water is a demonstration project (may be further along than that now) of direct potable reuse. It's better quality than bottled water and they even held an event where craft brewers made beer out of it for a tasting. So it's coming.
It kind of stokes my ire when I see people making remarks about Arizona neglecting and being unprepared for water supply issues. I worked in this field in my career and on some of the local recharge projects. Arizona has a long history as a leader in this area. We are much better prepared for the coming shortages than most states are.
I’m not saying it’s not coming, but it’s illegal under federal law right now. I work as a regulator in drinking water so I know what I’m talking about, and I have to approve all new water sources so I get inside knowledge on where this water comes from that people use. My job is to know what’s illegal here and what’s not. It’s my responsibility to do so. Scottsdale is not legally allowed to do more than what they are currently doing with the dpr facility (because again it’s illegal). If they were to provide that water to their distribution system they’d be in direct violation of the EPA SDWA and CWA and by selling bottled water they’d be in direct violation of the FDA Food Code. They get around this by only offering bottled water to people who sign legally they are ok to drinking it despite all of this. The water does not mean clean and safe drinking water under federal law at this time.
If you want my opinion, the SDWA is coming on to 30 years without amendments (1996) and it greatly needs them. New contaminants need to be added for federal regulation (PFAS), some contaminants need significant revision (lead and copper), and the rule needs to be amended to accommodate modernization of technology due to new engineering designs. The latter I want to hone in on here, because this also includes revisions of state law. The legal engineering bulletin for Arizona water systems is from 1978. Yes, that old. Includes absolutely zero updates (amending the engineering bulletin for water system design is also illegal under state law). This means our engineers can only really approve what is written from a legal book from the 70s.
Both water systems and other stakeholders have expressed ire working with such an old document for this purpose and it’s been raised to state government numerous times by now. But people continue electing leadership that cares nilch about its environmental practices and therefore won’t dedicate resources to this issue. I believe this lack of action to caring about environmental state laws are holding us back from achieving our true potential in our water resource management. We need leadership who cares about our environment and we needed them yesterday. We cannot approve new technology legally, and we have a governor who won’t do anything about it. This has to go through the governors office to amend the law. Leadership during this time has gotten rid of important water regulation in the early 2000s while still refusing to update this law, so in fact they’ve made it worse.
This issue came about when the City of Phoenix wanted to start building aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) wells in the northeastern part of the city. For a while it was only City of Phoenix building these ASR wells but now Scottsdale and some of the other big suburbs are joining them but many are still in the construction phase and not operational. The reason the other cities are not is due to the cost… $30 mil for just one of them on average (10x the cost of a normal well for a city). But to approve these wells we had to go through a lot of hoops when it could’ve and should’ve been easier had we worked on a modern book on environmental engineering. ASR wells did not exist in the 70s. ASR wells are one of the many things the cities have done to improve their outlooks, but the City of Phoenix is still about 90% surface water sources for overall water distribution makeup, a mixture of SRP and CAP. Their current active wells can only handle roughly 10 to 15% of peak demand. That other 90% has to come from somewhere.
ASR wells still have to treat water pulled from the aquifer (immediately after recharge) so again they have to meet certain treatment criteria. The water gets treated before it can be sent to someone to drink. Period. It can’t just go into the aquifer and back up again without being treated. The ASR wells using the aquifer as a long-term storage tank of treated water is no different. That water is treated extensively, in fact two or even more times over before someone drinks it which is a big power use. It involves meeting SDWA, CWA, AZPDES permits from ADEQ amongst other things. It’s a complicated process. It should be noted that legally since it hasn’t crossed the EPDS that this water is not considered grey water like water that gets to your house. But because it’s been pumped, would need to meet approximate time in grade in the aquifer to be used again. They get around this by doing extensive treatment (more so than normal for groundwater) at a minimum a second time.
Last edited by Prickly Pear; 08-18-2021 at 09:33 AM..
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