Quote:
Originally Posted by UrbanImpact
Salt River...I find it interesting that instead of watering your lawn (if you have one) in Phoenix, instead you flood your lawn at certain times of the year.
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Thats only the case for older areas that were built over former farmlands that were irrigated. The water infrastructure didn't change but instead of Orange and Grapefruit groves its just regular yards.
Its a small minority of most homes holdover from ore suburban sprawl.
And its more than just the Salt, its where the Salt and the Gila and the Verde and several small rivers and streams all meet in a flat plain that used to flood regularly every spring and is why irrigation agriculture was the standard for literally thousands of years. This has also led to a very large aquifer which is about half of the water the Valley ureses, 25% is canaled in from the Colorado and the rest is the various local rivers and streams.
It wasn't until the mid 1900's that modern Damns were built to prevent annual flooding and even then, we had a horrible one in the spring of 1974, and we will likely have a flood this spring due to the huge amount of snow and rain that has come down this year. The Verde (leads to the Salt) is already dealing with minor flooding.