What are your thoughts on the current water crisis going on in the Southwest?

26 comments

1. As a lifelong resident of Phoenix I think that the journalists who write doom and gloom articles about it are working in a state of severe ignorance and should just stop instead of think they can make an easy article based on faulty assumptions of how desert cities work. For one thing it doesn’t take a genius to realize that it doesn’t need to rain much for someplace to receive water, it simply flows downhill from where it does.

   No, Phoenix isn’t running out of water, our water supply isn’t in danger, we use less water than we did 60 years ago when most of The Valley was irrigated agricultural fields, and only 30% of our water is sourced from the Colorado River which we didn’t even have access to until the CAP was completed into town in the late ’80s. There’s a whole host of major cities that would run out of water sooner including places people don’t even expect like Atlanta which only has a 30-day water supply if cut off and is already experiencing sourcing issues compared to Phoenix which can last over a year.

   This year we got so much rain and snow, that it [completely filled all the reservoirs on the Salt River,](https://streamflow.watershedconnection.com/Dwr) our main source of water. The river which is normally dry through Phoenix has been running fairly hard for over 2 weeks, simply because they ran out of storage space and have maxed out their ability to pump water into underground water banking aquifers. Last week I saw they were releasing 30,000 cubic feet a second into the riverbed for a few days. That’s also not wasted, it will filter through the riverbed and replenish groundwater.

2. The problem is water is artificially cheap. The money the water company raises isn’t enough to replenish the water they take from the river/aquifer/whatever

   Last I checked, a farmer in California paid like 1/1000 what a homeowner in new York (me) paid

   If you market price water, suddenly it won’t make economic sense to grow stuff in the desert. Or maybe it does but now the water company can invest in desalination to keep their reserves topped up.

   [Here’s an article I like](https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/11/20/we-need-more-water-than-rain-can-provide-refilling-rivers-with-desalination/) about how we can invest in desalination to create an abundance of water. Iirc the price is optimistic but even at twice the price it’s not particularly difficult

3. It will sort itself out. As water prices rise and availability declines it will become harder to live there.

   Either new sources of water will become utilized or less people will move there.

4. Just sell them Lake Erie, it’s up to them to figure out how to ship it to Arizona.

   I live on the Ohio River so it’s not my monkey, not my circus.

   (For disclosure purposes I lived there for awhile, I was there for June 26th 1990 when Phoenix set the official all time record of 122°F. I do not miss that )

5. Personally I really dislike the comments I see in here, they gloss over a lot of important facts or just outright wrong. I’m deeply concern on the comment saying that desalination is the silver bullet and references a wordpress blog written by someone that isn’t even involved in water resources. The Southwest have a few other options that provide better ROI they need to try out before desalination becomes the primary solution. Google the options yourself, I’m not giving $500/hr service for free.

   There will more regulation on water management, increase in price for water, and ban on certain activities that utilize water. These are foregone conclusion for everyone involved in the water discussion. The question now is how it’ll be achieved. There are political, economical, and life-quality concerns that will be considered as its not just about the $. The most likely victim in the changing water situation in the Southwest is going to be agriculture. They do provide a service that people need and like, summer produce during winter months, BUT its not a necessity*.

   * I use this word in the very technical sense. If this service was no longer existing would it affect the survivability of society. In the context of Southwest, the answer is no.

6. I think that the region is reaching or has exceeded its carrying capacity for civilization.

7. Is the southwest ever *not* in a water crisis?

   I don’t think much of it, or have any opinion really, because I’m up here in Michigan with all the water I need lol shit I don’t even pay for it

8. The Southwest has always been in “water crisis” mode based on the news being put out, but the real way to see it is the Southwest has always been regulating water usage.

9. It’s going to get worse. Why people keep economies growing jn a desert and attracting more water-drinkers is beyond me .

10. I left AZ because of it to an extent.

11. Current? As long as I have been alive it seems they have had nothing but water problems. Something about building cities in a desert climate does that apparently.

12. It’s pretty much entirely a “too much unnecessary water-hungry agriculture in the desert” problem and not a “too many people living in the desert” problem, and blaming it on the people is little more than gaslighting.

13. I will always be struck that alfalfa and cotton are huge crops to grow along the Colorado and that seems very very stupid.

14. There has been a water crisis in California ever since I came to this country.

15. The US currently has [low water levels in other areas of the country](https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/rt). This is not just a problem isolated to the southwest.

    Unlike other states however the southwestern states are addressing shortages in water with notable successes in Arizona ([which consumes less water today than it did 60 years ago despite a 7x increase in population](https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2019/02/12/arizona-water-usage-state-uses-less-now-than-1957/2806899002/))

    I think the larger issue is people aren’t coming to terms with the real reason for the water shortage. The southwest isn’t facing a historic drought for 30-40 years. Its suffering from the effects from global climate change. This isn’t just a southwest problem, the world needs to start realizing that they have a part to play here.

16. When you build huge cities in a desert, you’re going to run out of water. Seems pretty simple to me.

17. I think there’s plenty of water in the region, but we’re massively mismanaging it. Water intensive crops like almonds should not be grown in the desert.

18. When your politicians are alfalfa farmers, you know that not jack shit will be done about our mevadrought. All they care about is abortion and LGBT+ people

19. I’d be awfully nervous if I were still living in Las Vegas. Lake Mead is dwindling *fast.* It’s frightening.

    It’s not even their fault. Believe it or not, despite all the other shit that Vegas does badly (education, public health, etc.), they do an amazing job with water conservation and reclamation.

20. An entirely self inflected wound that I have no pity for.

21. I’m from Arizona and we’re already seeing issues. Mini water-wars already happening between jurisdictions. The only alternative to a better regulated water usage is no water for anyone given enough time. I would not want to be around in 50-100 years time.

22. Drought is the sacrifice they have to make so I can have almond milk 🤣

23. I think they won’t do anything about it until the problem is unavoidable, then they’ll cry about it and steal from the great lakes.

24. Yes.

    I suspect that eventually the system will continue until it reaches a catastrophic problem that physically prevents further exploitation of public water.

    Once this occurs, wide spread economic damage will awaken other interests who will easily muscle aside the water interests and put some kind of control system in place.

    Recovery will be slow, and the region will never return to what it was. It will be well and truly fucked, and those investors will probably not be made whole within their life times. Perhaps their losses will inspire others to consider the way their collapsing environments will hurt them. I doubt it. But maybe.

25. I think it will have to be regulated. Also, even as someone more on the center right end, I feel like places like Phoenix and Vegas and even LA are just monuments to man’s hubris. Denver to an extent too. If you don’t have enough water or plant life to build a city, maybe you shouldn’t have one there, or at least have that many people there. I understand people love the mountains and deserts and its warm but there is a reason few people lived in the region, and ironically the Pueblo Indians had the same thing happen to an extent. Its why we have abandoned cliff dwellings. They got too big and made the settlements in places without many resources but eventually they had to move.

26. You can’t use resources faster than they can be replenished indefinitely.

    >Do you think water usage will have to be … charged more for?

    That’s the obvious effect in a market economy. As demand outstrips supply, prices rise.