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  #21  
Old Posted Mar 24, 2021, 8:35 PM
twister244 twister244 is offline
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Originally Posted by Pedestrian View Post
The average annual rainfall in Tucson, 12 inches and a fraction, is 50% more than the average in San Diego at 8 inches and a fraction.
San Diego is next to an ocean, much closer than Phoenix for desalination.....

Also, CA has massive runoff from the Sierra Nevada they can tap into, and have rights on. Phoenix has neither of these, is increasingly drawing down into their groundwater. Oh, and that wonderful CO river? What happens as Colorado's population continues to grow? They have rights on that water...... Including Denver if they suddenly decide they want in on it too.
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  #22  
Old Posted Mar 24, 2021, 8:55 PM
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Originally Posted by twister244 View Post
San Diego is next to an ocean, much closer than Phoenix for desalination.....

Also, CA has massive runoff from the Sierra Nevada they can tap into, and have rights on. Phoenix has neither of these, is increasingly drawing down into their groundwater. Oh, and that wonderful CO river? What happens as Colorado's population continues to grow? They have rights on that water...... Including Denver if they suddenly decide they want in on it too.
There are more water sources in Arizona than ground water and the Colorado River. Arizona, specifically Phoenix where these projects are going, also has SRP supplies (Salt and Verde River fully within AZ). According to the City, SRP accounts for 1/2 of Phoenix's water supply, CAP is 2/5. Arizona has planned well for water for a century. There are more avenues to obtain water rights as well. Plus any existing agriculture being replaced by homes and industry (which has happened and is happening like crazy) reduces general demand substantially.

The immediate general naysayers and water doomsdayers on this site that pop up (i.e. jealousy) whenever positive Phoenix/AZ news is discussed has happened for years and is pretty predictable and laughable.

Back to the news, I'd love to know where the Intel plants are being planned to go. Near the existing Intel Fab plant? There isn't any more room on site for a giant fab plant(s). Maybe just west of the existing site? But is that available and is it City/County/reservation land?.
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  #23  
Old Posted Mar 24, 2021, 10:19 PM
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Originally Posted by muertecaza View Post
To some degree I agree with you--it certainly is a major issue to be handled. But on the other hand, I don't know why we would single out water; to use Missouri as an example, it imports most of its power generation, and I'm sure much of its food supply, both also requirements for civilization. And with water specifically, Arizona's water usage is still all about agriculture, which uses about 70% of the state's water supply. We used more water in the state when we were under 1 million people in Phoenix metro than we do now, due to decreased agriculture and better conservation. And given that Arizona is part of a large country with many agricultural regions, I don't see any reason why Arizona couldn't reduce its agricultural water usage further when necessary.
Your comments about energy and agriculture in Missouri aren't true. Missouri produces huge amounts of corn, soybeans, beef and others. It's actually the 11th largest agricultural producing state. Plus, we're mostly self-sufficient in energy (unfortunately via coal) and import some wind power from Kansas and Iowa.

I don't mind using water for agriculture as much as for cities because at least it's used to produce food, and in places like AZ a lot of that production is off-season in the winter which fills a gap in supply that time of year.
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  #24  
Old Posted Mar 24, 2021, 10:22 PM
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Originally Posted by Pedestrian View Post
If it were profitable enough, desalinization plants could be built on the Gulf of California (or the Pacific but the state of CA would surely find excuses to block that) and pump all the fresh water needed to run chip fabs or any other industry. And given the nearly relentless sun, they could be solar powered and green.
This is kind of my point. If you'd have to build desalinization plants on the Pacific Ocean and pump it all the way to Arizona, goes to show what a horrible place AZ is to house millions of people.
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  #25  
Old Posted Mar 24, 2021, 11:52 PM
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There's no need to pump water back to Arizona. Water is a fungible commodity. The desalinated water can be sold locally, in exchange for a portion of Mexico's (or California's) allotment of Colorado River water.
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  #26  
Old Posted Mar 24, 2021, 11:58 PM
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Originally Posted by PHX31 View Post
There are more water sources in Arizona than ground water and the Colorado River. Arizona, specifically Phoenix where these projects are going, also has SRP supplies (Salt and Verde River fully within AZ). According to the City, SRP accounts for 1/2 of Phoenix's water supply, CAP is 2/5. Arizona has planned well for water for a century. There are more avenues to obtain water rights as well. Plus any existing agriculture being replaced by homes and industry (which has happened and is happening like crazy) reduces general demand substantially.

The immediate general naysayers and water doomsdayers on this site that pop up (i.e. jealousy) whenever positive Phoenix/AZ news is discussed has happened for years and is pretty predictable and laughable.

Back to the news, I'd love to know where the Intel plants are being planned to go. Near the existing Intel Fab plant? There isn't any more room on site for a giant fab plant(s). Maybe just west of the existing site? But is that available and is it City/County/reservation land?.
You obviously didn't read, or dismissed my post on the Verde River watershed, and Big Chino Wash. It's being sucked dry by the mere 200k, and growing, Quad Cities and Verde Valley communities. The White Mountains are the only somewhat reliable source for the Valley, outside of the overtaxed CO and way overtaxed groundwater, and it's not going to fill the ever growing needs.

Also, you suggest taking over even more agriculture, with subdivisions and sprawl, that are already well outside Central Phx? That runs contrary to the what a city needs to survive. Food is obviously shipped in, by and large, but you also need fresh local sources. If that cannot co-exist with a growing city, then it will be eventually doomed. So go ahead and laugh, but it looks foolish to non-flatlanders.
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  #27  
Old Posted Mar 25, 2021, 1:55 AM
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I bet Alabama will be the next Texas.
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  #28  
Old Posted Mar 25, 2021, 2:08 AM
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I only skim-read through the comments, but for those not familiar with desert environments, they're definitely not all the same.

My partner and I did a road trip through southern Arizona and Tucson last month, and the desert areas around Tucson are definitely more green than California's low desert areas. From what I've read, there's more underground aquifers in the desert surrounding Tucson, which gets water from snowmelt from the mountains, as well as when it gets cold enough for snow to form on the ground---I guess this phenomenon is kind of also what explains how California's hillsides become really green in the winter and spring because of all the moisture in the air and the dew that forms during winter and spring.

Example:

Area outside Desert Hot Springs, CA, 3.21.2021.

Photo by me

Compared with:

Saguaro National Park, AZ, mid-February 2021.

Photo by me
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  #29  
Old Posted Mar 25, 2021, 5:03 AM
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Originally Posted by sopas ej View Post
I only skim-read through the comments, but for those not familiar with desert environments, they're definitely not all the same.

My partner and I did a road trip through southern Arizona and Tucson last month, and the desert areas around Tucson are definitely more green than California's low desert areas. From what I've read, there's more underground aquifers in the desert surrounding Tucson, which gets water from snowmelt from the mountains, as well as when it gets cold enough for snow to form on the ground---I guess this phenomenon is kind of also what explains how California's hillsides become really green in the winter and spring because of all the moisture in the air and the dew that forms during winter and spring.
Tucson is a riverside town (bet ya didn’t know that). The Santa Cruz river flows through the middle of it and in the days when the area was part of New Spain it had water in it. Now in the Tucson area it’s dry on the surface but part of an underground aquifer and still flows on the surface south of Tucson around the town of Tubac.

Besides that, as I keep saying, Tucson gets more annual rainfall than San Diego by about 50%. Unlike SD where the rain comes mostly in winter, in Arizona it comes mostly in summer monsoonal thunderstorms but not entirely. Most of the winter storms travelling down the CA coast swing inland over Arizona bringing usually just showers (but sometimes much more).
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  #30  
Old Posted Mar 25, 2021, 6:13 AM
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Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007 View Post
This is kind of my point. If you'd have to build desalinization plants on the Pacific Ocean and pump it all the way to Arizona, goes to show what a horrible place AZ is to house millions of people.
FYI: Phoenix is only approx 160 miles from the Gulf of California. AZ did build a 335 mile long canal from the Colorado River through central AZ to Tucson and actually pumps water uphill. It's an engineering marvel. A desalination plant piping water over a long distance certainly isn't out of the question should the supply come in to question in the future.

A desalination plant from the Gulf is possible and given the close cultural, trading, political relationship that AZ has with Sonora, a deal would be possible between the two (probably more likely than a deal with California).

To a few other posts (not you), Phoenix's water supply consists of only 2% ground water. Rural towns and cities up north rely heavily on ground water because they do not hold surface water rights. Fortunately 80% of the population lives in Phoenix and Tucson and they hold most of the water rights. Others have already said that with less agricultural operations, water saving programs, efficient appliances, water consumption has not increased despite the state adding 6 million additional people.

This dynamic is also true for the 25 million people in Southern California as well. Los Angeles doesn't quench their thirst from the mighty LA River.
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  #31  
Old Posted Mar 25, 2021, 1:36 PM
fonzi fonzi is offline
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Originally Posted by Camelback View Post
FYI: Phoenix is only approx 160 miles from the Gulf of California. AZ did build a 335 mile long canal from the Colorado River through central AZ to Tucson and actually pumps water uphill. It's an engineering marvel. A desalination plant piping water over a long distance certainly isn't out of the question should the supply come in to question in the future.

A desalination plant from the Gulf is possible and given the close cultural, trading, political relationship that AZ has with Sonora, a deal would be possible between the two (probably more likely than a deal with California).

To a few other posts (not you), Phoenix's water supply consists of only 2% ground water. Rural towns and cities up north rely heavily on ground water because they do not hold surface water rights. Fortunately 80% of the population lives in Phoenix and Tucson and they hold most of the water rights. Others have already said that with less agricultural operations, water saving programs, efficient appliances, water consumption has not increased despite the state adding 6 million additional people.

This dynamic is also true for the 25 million people in Southern California as well. Los Angeles doesn't quench their thirst from the mighty LA River.
You are glossing over a few things to paint a rosy scenario. While Phoenix may not use groundwater, Mesa does primarily use groundwater. As ground water resources dwindle in places like Yavapai County, you might see a big change in how water rights are negotiated. It is nearly a quarter million people and growing fast, and asking them to move to the valley isn't a viable option.

Also, as I've stated before on this thread, how can you just decide to stop agriculture usage, especially when it yields products needed by places like Phx and Tucson, and even the country? If both cities and farms cannot exist simultaneously, you have a much bigger issue at hand.
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  #32  
Old Posted Mar 25, 2021, 2:32 PM
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Originally Posted by Pedestrian View Post
Tucson is a riverside town (bet ya didn’t know that). The Santa Cruz river flows through the middle of it and in the days when the area was part of New Spain it had water in it. Now in the Tucson area it’s dry on the surface but part of an underground aquifer and still flows on the surface south of Tucson around the town of Tubac.

Besides that, as I keep saying, Tucson gets more annual rainfall than San Diego by about 50%. Unlike SD where the rain comes mostly in winter, in Arizona it comes mostly in summer monsoonal thunderstorms but not entirely. Most of the winter storms travelling down the CA coast swing inland over Arizona bringing usually just showers (but sometimes much more).
Actually, I did indeed know that Tucson has a river that goes through it. In fact, the hotel we stayed at on our recent trip there was right near the Santa Cruz River. It was a dry riverbed (we referred to it as an arroyo, which I'm not entirely sure is the actual correct term for it). I grew up often crossing the LA River and the San Gabriel River in LA County (which I grew up near), and in the parts that are not encased in concrete, you see actual wildlife and flora growing in the riverbed, and little ponds form there, which indicates that they do indeed have water flowing through them, if not on the surface during the rainy season, water is still flowing underground, and some of it even bubbles up into the riverbed. The part of the Santa Cruz River we saw in Tucson had plants growing in it, so we figured there was underground water flowing in it.
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  #33  
Old Posted Mar 25, 2021, 5:19 PM
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River cities can, in theory, run out of drinking water. Many water systems in the Midwest keep several days worth of treated water in water towers in case intakes must be closed during a pollution event. For example, strip mine dams occasionally break in West Virginia and a coal sludge makes its way into the Ohio River. Alternately, a major flood can inundate a water works.

That said, those are both temporary interruptions. We haven't had a drought in the Mississippi/Ohio watersheds since 1988, and that was a noteworthy but otherwise relatively brief 6-8 week summer drought, not a year-after-year depletion of reservoirs like California and Arizona.
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  #34  
Old Posted Mar 25, 2021, 5:38 PM
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The vast majority of the agriculture in Phoenix and Pinal county is for hay and cotton, not just "fresh food" for the City. The vast majority on the far outskirts or in Pinal County will never be developed into anything besides farming uses. I'm quite certain Phoenix/Arizona will be just fine losing some agriculture for growth related to $20 billion dollar semi-conductor plants. The water situation is essentially a wash, and worrying about needing "fresh food" for Phoenix is a moot point. The point of this thread was the mega projects coming, which are great news.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sopas ej View Post
Actually, I did indeed know that Tucson has a river that goes through it. In fact, the hotel we stayed at on our recent trip there was right near the Santa Cruz River. It was a dry riverbed (we referred to it as an arroyo, which I'm not entirely sure is the actual correct term for it). I grew up often crossing the LA River and the San Gabriel River in LA County (which I grew up near), and in the parts that are not encased in concrete, you see actual wildlife and flora growing in the riverbed, and little ponds form there, which indicates that they do indeed have water flowing through them, if not on the surface during the rainy season, water is still flowing underground, and some of it even bubbles up into the riverbed. The part of the Santa Cruz River we saw in Tucson had plants growing in it, so we figured there was underground water flowing in it.
Phoenix is also a riverside town - the Salt River flows (flowed, sometimes flows) just south of downtown. Back in the day the City would deal with floods; not an issue any more since SRP dammed it way up stream and it's channelization. There are wetland areas just south of the CBD, Tempe Town Lake is within the Salt River bed, and there are grand plans to extend something like that to Phoenix.

Early native civilizations built canals and irrigated crops in the valley, settlers of Phoenix used these old canals for a period of time and eventually the rest of the area used as agriculture developed. I watched as some of these canals were uncovered during construction of the initial light rail line in the City. They didn't look like much, but the archaeologists were excited, and just knowing what they were was very interesting.
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  #35  
Old Posted Mar 25, 2021, 6:00 PM
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The vast majority of the agriculture in Phoenix and Pinal county is for hay and cotton, not just "fresh food" for the City. The vast majority on the far outskirts or in Pinal County will never be developed into anything besides farming uses. I'm quite certain Phoenix/Arizona will be just fine losing some agriculture for growth related to $20 billion dollar semi-conductor plants. The water situation is essentially a wash, and worrying about needing "fresh food" for Phoenix is a moot point. The point of this thread was the mega projects coming, which are great news.



Phoenix is also a riverside town - the Salt River flows (flowed, sometimes flows) just south of downtown. Back in the day the City would deal with floods; not an issue any more since SRP dammed it way up stream and it's channelization. There are wetland areas just south of the CBD, Tempe Town Lake is within the Salt River bed, and there are grand plans to extend something like that to Phoenix.

Early native civilizations built canals and irrigated crops in the valley, settlers of Phoenix used these old canals for a period of time and eventually the rest of the area used as agriculture developed. I watched as some of these canals were uncovered during construction of the initial light rail line in the City. They didn't look like much, but the archaeologists excited, and just knowing what they were was very interesting.
Early native civilizations also had to abandon the area when sudden, and entirely natural, changes in climate occurred.

An actual dry river bed filled with water from another river far away, is only positive in an engineering sense, and should be concerning otherwise. Those "wetlands" are just way to say puddles, in the same riverbed. Also, you are conveniently forgetting all the actual food production farther down the Gila watershed...and funny how you dismiss alfalfa as seemingly unimportant, when it's feeds the dairy cattle....for local products!! Semi conductor manufacturing, and cities need a surplus of food to exist, in case you forgot.
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  #36  
Old Posted Mar 25, 2021, 6:00 PM
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I guess the main idea is that the American Southwest is not an extreme desert like the Sahara ( at least, from my point of view). Of course, it’s drier than the rest of the country, but it’s not terribly low on water.
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  #37  
Old Posted Mar 25, 2021, 6:06 PM
fonzi fonzi is offline
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Originally Posted by jmecklenborg View Post
River cities can, in theory, run out of drinking water. Many water systems in the Midwest keep several days worth of treated water in water towers in case intakes must be closed during a pollution event. For example, strip mine dams occasionally break in West Virginia and a coal sludge makes its way into the Ohio River. Alternately, a major flood can inundate a water works.

That said, those are both temporary interruptions. We haven't had a drought in the Mississippi/Ohio watersheds since 1988, and that was a noteworthy but otherwise relatively brief 6-8 week summer drought, not a year-after-year depletion of reservoirs like California and Arizona.
What you say is very true, and wish the local hubris wasn't so apparent. There are so many water features, ex. fountains and such at the entrances of subdivisions and shopping areas, in the Phx metro that don't exist in such numbers in much wetter places. They want the same greenery as those other cities, and they think they can thwart nature to get it.
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  #38  
Old Posted Mar 25, 2021, 6:07 PM
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The Southwest is getting drier, not wetter.

I expect to see some Southwestern cities to continue booming until they bust, mainly due to incredible energy costs and obviously the lack of water. I guarantee that in 100 years the region will be greatly inconvenienced by continued drought, which is becoming the standard climate.

The Mojave is drier than the Sonoran, but this is also poised to change. When cactus species start dying due to lack of water, you have a real problem. This is happening right now.
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  #39  
Old Posted Mar 25, 2021, 6:24 PM
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Originally Posted by fonzi View Post
What you say is very true, and wish the local hubris wasn't so apparent. There are so many water features, ex. fountains and such at the entrances of subdivisions and shopping areas, in the Phx metro that don't exist in such numbers in much wetter places. They want the same greenery as those other cities, and they think they can thwart nature to get it.
This. It is hubris plain and simple. I get frustrated with this attitude of many people in the Southwest, including Southern California, who seem to want all the benefits of a wet environment, without the actual rain. They want to see grass and trees everywhere, fountains, 'lakes', etc. in places where it rains like 10 days a year.

You should hear the conversations I've heard from tree advocates in Los Angeles. They really think Los Angeles should be a city in a forest (see Hancock Park for their vision), when it's in a semi-arid environment. Look at historical photos of Los Angeles before it was all developed, and see how many trees were there. Not many. Trees clustered around existing water resources, which is the pattern you see in undeveloped canyon areas. But the flat lands of the LA basin and valleys were basically grass/dirt, with some shrubs scattered around-- the chaparral landscape. But that doesn't stop the advocates here from demanding a robust 'urban forest' lol. It's ludicrous.

The midwest and east coast can't import the sun or warm winter temperatures, but residents of the arid west import water to create these artificial environments. And we wonder why the sunbelt grows while the rust belt declines.
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  #40  
Old Posted Mar 25, 2021, 6:56 PM
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They want to see grass and trees everywhere, fountains, 'lakes', etc. in places where it rains like 10 days a year.
I don't disagree with the majority of yours' and fonzi's posts, but in theory we're supposed to get more than ten days of rain a year (I'm picking nits, to be fair ).

The problem, especially the last two years, is that the monsoons haven't happened with the same frequency as in the past or, in the case of 2020, at all. If I remember right, Flagstaff usually averages about five or six inches of rain in July and August, but we only got about an inch and a half last year? 90F with low humidity isn't intolerable compared to the midwest and southeast, but not a whole lot of us have/use air conditioning because in the past, there was maybe only a few days or weeks a year in mid-to-late June where that happened. In 2019 and 2020, it wasn't uncommon to have months of those kinds of temperatures. And then there's the risk of fire, living in the middle of one of the largest contiguous pine forests on the continent...

And snowfall has become increasingly inconsistent. We depend on the melting snowpack to keep the Colorado River flowing, but that's also seemingly happening less and less. Where I live, it usually averages about 100 inches of snow a year, but I don't think we've come anywhere close to that in a while. We'll get one or two "big" (over two feet) snow storms a season, but that's it. The AZ Snowbowl ski resort began using reclamated (sp?) water to make snow a few years back to bring in the tourists, pissing off the environmentalists and the Native American tribes who consider the peaks to be sacred.

Maybe I read too much Jon Talton?

Long story short, how sustainable is any of this in the long term?
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