A tragic mistake
As a desert born person who has been around for more than a three fourths of a century and who has been deeply involved in the business and the politics of water for many years, I can claim some small authority when speaking of water issues. Having been a desert lover and desert dweller for most of those years, I can unashamedly weep at the truly tragic waste of the single most precious resource we have. Yes, truly tragic, as in an ongoing tragedy of near biblical proportions. That tragedy is the undeniable fact that we use our water faster than it is being replenished.
I see good, kind, well-meaning folks unknowingly wasting our precious drinking water on turf grass lawns and on water hungry landscape plants and on pretty but water wasting fountains and decorative features.
I see commercial recreational users wasting precious drinking water on huge, beautifully groomed golf course turf grass.
I see Cities, Counties and States wasting water on beautiful parks and green belts and lakes and ponds in public use areas.
I see horrid, unmitigated greed wasting water on commercial hay farms that produce dairy feed for consumption in dairy operations halfway around the world.
Many people will respond to my statements with comments such as, “So what, we need the beauty.” Others will say, “You are a crank, we aren’t wasting water, there’s always more.” Some continue to preach that, “There is lots of water down there,” and even our laws, sadly enough, don’t restrict water use if it is for a “beneficial purpose.” Who truly defines and determines “beneficial”? Developers are supposed to prove a 100-year supply of water available to a newly developing area of homes and businesses. The so-called proofs of those wished-for water supplies are ambiguous at best and borderline criminal at worst. Surveys, tests, studies and samplings do little more than provide a tiny glimpse of the true amount of water in any given aquifer. There are many well-meaning, highly skilled hydrologists and geologists and water witches and dowsers who assure us that we have adequate water for a century or more to satisfy our collective thirst. Unfortunately, the only real, meaningful measurements available regarding that incalculable treasure beneath our feet are the measurements of draw down or the ongoing, measurable shrinkage of the water levels under us.
A very sad reality in this matter is that the vast majority of the water available to us is fossil water, that is water that has fallen on our beautiful state over millions of years and very, very slowly percolated downward into the various aquifers we rely on. I have found no one yet who can say definitively just how long is required for rainfall to percolate all the way down to the aquifers’ upper surface. Unfortunately, we are not blessed with a vast network of creeks and streams and rivers to supply us with life giving sustenance like those water-fortunate states to our east. Our beautiful state has an extremely limited number of surface water sources and those are, each and every one, grossly over allocated. Ask any water scientist how much rain falls on Arizona in any given period and how much water we expect and demand from our aquifers. The answer is a net negative. We depend not only on our overburdened shrinking underground water sources, but we spend huge amounts of money and energy on distributing water from the Colorado River to users across our state. So, here we all are, happily, selfishly using and wasting precious water from underground and from and importing it at great cost.
There are a few valiant folks, representing us in our state legislature, who are fighting tooth and nail to address the water issues that affect all of us. Those folks need and deserve your support. I ask that you call and write your representative and your senator and voice your support for the measures they are fighting for to save that one irreplaceable resource without which we cannot live. Life giving and sustaining nectar of life, water.
