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Severe drought and mandatory water cuts are pitting communities against each other in Arizona:
As the climate crisis intensifies, battle lines are beginning to form over water. In Arizona -- amid a decades-long megadrought -- some communities are facing the very real possibility of losing access to the precious water that remains.
Outside the city limits of Scottsdale, where the asphalt ends and the dirt road begins, is the Rio Verde Foothills community. Hundreds of homes here get water trucked in from Scottsdale, but those deliveries will end on January 1, 2023.
That's because last summer, for the first time ever, drought conditions forced the federal government to declare a tier 1 water shortage in the Colorado River, reducing how much Arizona can use.
[...] "We are what I call the 'sacrificial lamb' for the bigger areas," Irwin told CNN. "In my opinion, look somewhere else -- we need to be able to sustain ourselves."
The scarcity of water in the state is pitting small towns against fast-growing metropolitan communities.
[...] Arizona's population growth and extreme drought have increased demand for water in limited supply. Kathleen Ferris, a senior research fellow with the Kyl Center for Water Policy in Arizona, says water scarcity in the state has resulted in the "haves" and the "have nots," and likened the coming water battles to the days of the Wild West. "Once you have your water rights, you defend it," Ferris said. "That's the way it works."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Friday April 01 2022, @08:12AM (15 children)
I returned to look at this story and the comments at the start of my Friday (in my time zone). I am struck by the fact that the comments can be split into mainly 2 categories: those (a minority) who are trying to find a solution to the problem and those that just want to find something to blame for the state of things today. To me, it doesn't matter whether this event is a result of global warming or not - there has been a severe drought and the result is that many places that have sustained life for a considerable period of time are now facing difficulties. It also doesn't matter whether it is in the middle of a desert or lush green pastures - people have lived there for a long time and it wasn't always the way it is today. There are many countries in the middle east that have overcome similar limitations. Something has changed - and I don't care whether it is natural, political or self-induced.
There are solutions to such problems as a few commentators have pointed out. Many are not cheap but we have solved numerous problems without considering the financial aspects as being the primary driver to problem resolution. Survival is more important. Whatever we develop or discover along the way will be useful for addressing similar problems in the future elsewhere in the world. And if we don't act then films such as Mad Max become a prophetic vision of the future that we might face.
Some partial solutions will cost nothing - although they are too late perhaps for these particular communities. How can anyone justify prohibiting the collection of rainwater from the roof of an individual's property? The water need not be potable to be suitable for a multitude of uses - flushing the toilet, washing the car, showering etc. Half hour showers are an unaffordable luxury - fit a mechanical timer. You want a swimming pool? Fill it with rain water that you have collected or accept that you cannot waste valuable drinking water on another luxury item. It all helps reduce the overall loading on other scarce water supplies.
When did we become a species of finger pointers rather than problem solvers? What if man hadn't discovered the wheel but just complained about how heavy things were difficult to move, or hadn't harnessed fire but sat around watching his family freeze to death while eating raw meat?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2022, @08:36AM (9 children)
Parent said:
"people have lived there for a long time and it wasn't always the way it is today."
People (modern Americans) have NOT been there for a long time, and we live there in a manner that previous inhabitants did not. Los Angeles, for example, used to be dusty, scrubby land. Now it has lush greenery and tall palm trees. This is not the state we found it in originally.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2022, @08:39AM
-nada
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday April 01 2022, @09:49AM (7 children)
Yes, I agree, in European terms that is yesterday - but for most Americans it is almost the beginning of time. People lived there. They didn't all die from dehydration - in fact it seems that they survived and prospered quite well. The indigenous Indian population also seem to have survived reasonably well until their lives were changed as massive immigration began.
But despite being an interesting point, it doesn't address the problem that TFA raises. There is roughly the same amount of water on the planet as there was 240 years ago, but it is in the wrong form and in the wrong place. That, in my view, is the problem that we have to solve.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2022, @10:07AM (4 children)
There are roughly 9x the number of humans on the planet as there was 240 years ago.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday April 01 2022, @11:03AM (3 children)
So, you've identified the problem - now how do we solve it? I am not being facetious - it is a genuine question. We cannot just 'remove' people. People are living longer, the population is growing and current system that we have cannot support them. You have now caught up with the problem posed by TFA. Lets now move forward and try to resolve it.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 01 2022, @01:38PM (1 child)
Covid and similar. A pandemic that kills some people, and causes fertility problems in other people seems made-to-order, doesn't it? Of course, anyone who suspects that a pandemic that just happened to start in the neighborhood of a virus research lab that just happened to document gain of function that just happened to look exactly like the current pandemic are nothing but conspiracy theorists.
Funny thing too. Bill Gates has been quoted many times, saying words to the effect "3 billion people need to die." Doing a search only finds "fact checkers" that deny that Bill ever said anything like that.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2022, @08:22PM
Runaway! On the internets! Doing his own research! Fascinating!
Seriously, you old coot, drop the conspiracy theories, and do your part. Slough off that mortal coil, so we can harvest your water, Dune style.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2022, @02:55PM
There is not really a shortage of water. There is a shortage of water in some places where people want to live for reasons other than sustainability. There is plenty of water in Louisiana.
A hundred years ago, not as many people wanted to live in Arizona because it's too hot for comfort without air conditioning. Technology made it more habitable. In the 1920s, nobody would have wanted to move to Arizona to retire.
Generally speaking, technology gets us into trouble and then it gets us out again. Water recycling is a shadow of what it could be. Sustainable development (no lush green lawns in the desert, turn off the fountains at the Bellagio) needs to be encouraged. Desalination has a part to play, a big one once we have enough carbon-free energy to power it. Every person in Southern California who can drink ocean water means enough river water for one more person to drink in Arizona, and they can defray the cost of the desalination plant by selling off the unneeded water rights. Less water-intensive farming practices would help a lot too. Some of that means different crops, some of it means different farming techniques, some of it means genetic engineering drought-resistant crops.
If you want to employ some economic leverage, make builders pay their own way. Right now people buy water from utilities, and the utilities have to buy the water rights, but everyone pays the same rates. Yeah, there's a utility hookup fee for new construction, but this doesn't address the rising marginal cost of purchasing additional water. This means every new person who moves to the desert has their water subsidized by everyone who already lives there, and it's all mandated by local governments (who always want more population, because more population means more revenue). Make all new construction buy the water rights they'll need through some sort of cooperative buying scheme. Now builders, farmers, and governments can all play on the same field. There's only so much water to go around.
As with any serious problem, the correct solution is always "all of the above."
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 01 2022, @03:26PM
The Southwest is vulnerable to shifts in rainfall. Pueblo Bonito [wikipedia.org] was a major population center about 1200 years ago. Local climate change and deforestation seems to have made the location unsustainable.
Likewise there are many other Puebloan sites like Hovenweep [nps.gov] or Canyons of the Ancients [blm.gov] that ultimately failed because of drought.
So drought is nothing new to the region. Human agency can, has, and does exacerbate the effects; but the converse may also be true. And those conditions can quickly reverse themselves. I have seen in the last decade the reservoirs in California's Central Valley go from near empty to almost overflowing. Snowpack in the Western ranges, which feeds the watersheds, has waxed and waned also.
All of those systems use more energy than humans can produce, or have ever produced. We can't rival nature. We should, however, avoid making things worse.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 04 2022, @02:23AM
Unfamiliar with the American West, are we, janrinok? There is an old saying out West: "Whiskey's for drinking, water's for fighting." True as ever.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2022, @08:38AM (1 child)
Mad RunawayMax future? Involves large tractor trainers and a tanker trailer. Love how janrinok disapproves of our comments. He could leave. Problem solved!
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday April 01 2022, @09:33AM
Nowhere did I say that I disapprove of anyone's comments - it is a discussion. All contributions that are on-topic are relevant and worth considering. I am merely intrigued that some seem to approach problems with an 'its not my fault, blame X' attitude whereas others seem to seek solutions.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Friday April 01 2022, @08:50AM (1 child)
Apparently, places that are so incredibly short on water that their state governments prohibit citizens from "messing with the watershed" etc. as it is so heavily controlled and "precious" that you capturing some of it and it not naturally running off into a river or soaking into the ground or being doled out and taxed by your local authority is a BIG no-no...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2022, @02:59PM
That was actually the original idea, but it turns out that not catching rainwater is actually pretty stupid. Most of it just evaporates, or winds up in the sewage. Meanwhile, the amount of water use it would save would more than make up for the tiny trickle that somehow finds its way into a stream somewhere. But it's very hard to displace an entrenched, stupid idea (see also for example daylight saving time, or the tax filing system).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bradley13 on Friday April 01 2022, @10:32AM
The solution is actually, really simple: charge market-rates for water. If it is plentiful, it will be cheap. If it is scarce, people will bid up the price. Also: no special deals for big users, like agriculture or golf courses.
Water usage will plummet, as soon as people have to pay realistic prices for it. No other intervention needed.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.