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October 17, 2017

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Not just Arizona, the Pacific Northwest has problems pumping too much ground water also, but some districts in NE Oregon are actively doing ground water recharge systems to put water back into the aquifers.

My brother has put in several as well as making the use of water more "efficient" but there is still a long ways to go since many times the old treaties allocate more water to be used than there is available.

Some areas have a lot of non-permitted wells and everyone is in a race to go deeper and get theirs before the water goes away or someone wakes up and enforces responsible usage and shuts down the non-permitted wells

A mess for sure no matter how one looks at water. Even Seattle had water rationing some years back because of snowpack failure, that was ironically the same year we had major flooding and sunk one of our floating bridges that was being repaired.

A Ponzi scheme indeed. How will those poor homeowners pay the recharge fees they will be left holding? I predict many will simply walk away and leave the keys at the bank holding the mortgage. Many of these wildcat developments will be abandoned ghost towns in the 2020s.

What is my incentive for water conservation, lacking any coherent approach to do so? My mantra has been, I'm using whatever water I want, because anything conserved will just allow another developer to continue exploitation. The sooner the day of reckoning arrives, the better.

Recently hiked in the Verde Valley to see how groundwater pumping has lowered the Big Chino aquifer. I understand the historic source was at Del Rio Springs, but is now a few miles "downstream" at Verde Springs. The Town of Prescott has plans for new pumping stations as well. Similarly, the San Pedro River is vulnerable to pumping for development in its watershed including Buena Vista. These are Arizona's two remaining undammed rivers, much deserving of protection.

This "water" issue will continue to bedevil the willfully ignorant global warming deniers--who are the huge majority in Arizona. The main reason this "drying up" exists is because of capitalism run irresponsibly amok with its carbon and methane emissions. This is simply the manifestation of Isaac Newton's saying, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." to put it another way (as in the Chiffon margarine commercial), "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." When the Earth makes a move, we humans are quite feeble and powerless. Capitalists, the free lunch isn't free: Payback's a %#&*@!

Death to the water thieves! SRP will.tap the LDS mafia to run off the heathens making bank off the Saintly bleed the beast scheme. New River is populated mostly with that special kind of Arizona krank that hates gub’ment, loves their guns and trucks, and screams the loudest when skinned by the REIC.

Careful Rogue, Roscoe Jr. and Crow might go Seattle to lay a new trap for ya!

Jerry is Very insightful

The sound of Trump and developers sucking ground water.
http://www.hcn.org/articles/water-trumps-blm-bureau-of-land-management-clears-a-hurdle-for-controversial-cadiz-project?utm_source=wcn1&utm_medium=email

And
http://www.hcn.org/articles/monuments-in-congress-rob-bishop-threatens-national-monuments-face-another-attack?utm_source=wcn1&utm_medium=email

However State of Washington fights back.
Denies water permit for coal boys
http://www.hcn.org/articles/latest-more-pushback-against-coal-export-terminals?utm_source=wcn1&utm_medium=email

So I have a friend who is up on water issues and her advice is do not buy land in Pinal County as they have last dibs on CAP water and groundwater tables are dropping. In New River some people have wells and others drilled for water but came up dry and had to haul water from a nearby (!) source in Scottsdale on Dynamite Road. Said Scottsdale fore-warned them that the tap would/will be turned off (I think it is but not sure) as their water resources are looking to be stretched by the West’s Most Western Town’s continued growth. So New River turned to Phoenix and got the thumb down again. So they are paying haulers an ever increasing premium for water. It costs about $1500 to fill a pool! Also Rio Verde is increasingly in the same boat as New River.

I feel there's a lot of people, not just in Arizona, that think this issue will somehow magically right itself. They choose to willfully ignore what all the scientists say about the dire consequences ahead from our profligate use of fossil fuels, instead pinning their hopes on the idea that the scientists are somehow in a conspiracy to either constrict our way of life or have some kind of animus toward American freedom. As these climate changes pile up, as they will on ascending parabolas of temperature increase, storm ferocity increase, and rising sea level, these skeptics will become the worst zealots (as the newly converted usually are), but by then, it may very well be to late.

Thank you Jerry for the background.

We won't literally run out of water, as farmers will fallow their fields once water prices make it worth their while to sell water rather than farm, but like all commodities, it surely will get more expensive.

I read an article in the Republic a few weeks ago about how the Colorado River Indian Communities are exploring possible ways they could monetize and sell their their tremendous water allocation, rather than using it via a leaky canal system to irrigate crops.

We shall see over time how scarcity drives investments in efficiency. No one cares when water's cheap; once it becomes expensive, people will start to care.

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