Every municipality has a different mix of water supplies with varying degrees of reliability. There are two other water sources: groundwater, which is pumped from the aquifer below, and a small but growing amount of treated wastewater, accounting for an estimated 5% of the water supply statewide. Two major watersheds are involved: The Central Arizona Project (CAP) diverts water from the Colorado River, 300 miles away, and the Salt River Project (SRP) draws from the Salt and Verde rivers, north of Phoenix. Most of the valley’s water supply comes from the winter snowpack in distant mountains, which melts and flows through a vast system of dams, reservoirs and canals. There’s truth to these assessments: The Valley of the Sun receives less than 8 inches of rainfall each year. And sociologist Andrew Ross dubbed Phoenix the “least sustainable city on earth” in his 2011 book Bird on Fire. in his 2016 book The Future of the Suburban City. “TO LIVE IN A CITY NAMED after a bird that periodically self-immolates itself is to invite scrutiny,” writes lawyer, academic and Phoenix resident Grady Gammage Jr. Unless they can develop significant new water supplies, he said, “the alternative is something they don’t want to think about.” “To live in a city named after a bird that periodically self-immolates itself is to invite scrutiny.” Many of the area’s rapidly expanding suburbs lack access to the water necessary for all the growth they are planning, said Mark Holmes, Goodyear’s water resources manager from 2012 to 2018. That raises questions about whether policies and attitudes that encourage maximum growth are sustainable. But if current growth rates continue, in roughly a decade it will be impossible to ignore. Unlike wildfires or hurricanes, a diminishing water supply is a slow-moving, mostly invisible crisis. By 2040, the region’s population is expected to reach more than 7 million, despite its limited and shrinking water supply.Įven though the effects of climate change are intensifying throughout the Southwest, people keep moving here - to the hottest, driest part of the country. A few outlying “mega-burbs” like Buckeye and Goodyear to Phoenix’s west and Queen Creek to the east have annexed large amounts of land and are themselves some of the nation’s fastest-growing cities. In 2017, Phoenix became the fifth-largest city in the U.S., a sprawling “megalopolis” of almost 5 million people that’s also known as the Valley of the Sun. There’s just one problem: The region doesn’t appear to have enough water for all the planned growth. ![]() The pandemic has only intensified that trend, with home sales increasing by nearly 12 percent in 2020. Six months ago, Santana joined the hundreds of thousands of people who have moved to the greater Phoenix area in recent years looking for affordable homes, sunshine and warm winters. Santana began researching states that had few natural disasters, and Arizona turned up at the top of the list. ![]() From a natural disaster standpoint, though, Dallas was not much better: The city, which lies in a so-called Tornado Alley, experiences frequent severe storms. Instead, the yearly hurricane season caused her so much stress that she moved to Dallas. Tanned and fit, with long dark hair that hangs in loose curls, Santana grew up in rural Virginia but moved to Florida when she was 22, hoping to settle down and enjoy the warm weather. Santana, who is 34, moved to the Phoenix area last October from Texas with her 9-year-old son, Malachi, and her business partner, Alyssa Bell.
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