Phoenix is water wise but planning is key

Phoenix is often referred to as a ‘desert city’, because it is built in and has grown up in the desert. The Phoenix metropolitan area or Valley of the Sun, is located in the northeast of the Sonoran Destert and has one of the hottest climates of any other city in the country.

Despite this, Phoenix is not a desert city, it is a river city. The city as we know it today only exists because of the Salt and Gila Rivers, it was founded in 1861 near the place where the two rivers meet and it gets 90% of its water from the Salt River and Colorado River.

They’re integral to the city then and the Phoenix Water Services Department recently revealed to Phoenix news media how important planning ahead is in terms of keeping all the taps in the city working. While the majority of the department’s activities and expenditure is taken up by maintenance of the system on a day-to-day basis, the $240,000 cost of maintaining membership with the Water Research Foundation is said to be essential for the long-term objectives of the department.

Ray Quay, the assistant director of the city’s Water Department, recently told state and Phoenix news provider, Arizona Central, that their partnership with the foundation gives them access to millions of dollars worth of research into three areas of primary importance, namely the effect of climate change on water supplies, the management of salt in water and the use of pharmaceuticals in waste water treatment systems.

In addition, federal environmental regulations are updated and revised constantly, while new research is ongoing. The Water Research Foundation keeps track of these issues and helps members stay up-to-date as well. For instance, a $4 million research project on how the three themes mentioned above effect water supplies was recently undertaken by the foundation. Such expenditure on research is far beyond the scope of the Phoenix Water Services Department, which has an annual operating budget of around $240 million.

Quay outlined why such research is important to Phoenix. In terms of climate change, the assistance director of the Water Department admitted that the city’s water provider did not have a proper grasp on how it might effect the city’s water supplies as rainfall cycles supply the rivers from which we get 90% of our water. Salinity is also of concern because, although the current levels of salt in the city’s public water supplies are manageable, they’re increasing on a yearly basis.

“The salt level is getting to a point where it may reach a level where it may be unusable,” Quay told Phoenix news media, adding that research was important for understanding what to do when Phoenix reaches the point where salt levels are too high, and how to avoid that happening.

Pharmaceuticals, like climate change, are another area that need more attention, according to Quay, who said that some of the various medicines used by people in the city do make their way into the wastewater system and the Water Department needs to understand the impact such byproducts might have in the future.

To this end, the Water Department is also collaborating with the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association which brings together the water departments of the ten major cities in Arizona to pool knowledge and resources.

“We basically are all working together on the water planning activities to confront some of the big issues that we’re facing now,” Steve Olson, the executive director of the organisation, told Phoenix news media.

In this regard, the city has provided much value to long-term sustainable living projects in the region and has the potential to do much more, acting as a water conservation leader of sorts in the state. Phoenix is one of the most environmentally-friendly cities in the country in terms of water use, especially when one considers that the vast majority of water is used in the agricultural industry.

“Phoenix is using less water today than we were a decade ago and less per capita than we were two decades ago,” Mayor Phil Gordon told Phoenix news media in 2009.

The city’s Water Resource Plan backs up such statements, showing that water use in Phoenix has decreased 20% since the 1980s on the back of projects undertaken by businesses, individuals and the city council to reduce water use. This includes such oddities as flushing the toilet less and watering the garden at night to major undertakings by local government to retrofit houses and buildings with devices and systems that save water.

Appliances in Phoenix are now sold with a star rating that assesses their water usage, in a similar manner to energy star ratings, and agricultural fields have been re-landscaped at an angle to collect and reuse runoff. In addition, xeriscaping has become a new technique used in gardening that beautifies land with plants that are indigenous to the region and therefore naturally need less water for survival.