Guest Editorial: Water Winners & Losers

By Raoul Zubia

With last week’s announcement on Colorado River cuts, Scottsdale must now deal with the cut to Arizona’s share and, in turn, a cut to Scottsdale’s CAP share of about 20%—for now—according to the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association. This is not fearmongering; it is fact.

Advanced Water Purification in Scottsdale is the fastest way to fill that 20% and any future losses with clean, affordable water. The next City Council must restore full funding for that program. Yes, there will be significant upfront costs, but in the long run this will guarantee our supply, making it a sound investment in Scottsdale’s future.

I’ve often talked and written about my alarm at Councilmember Barry Graham’s vote against water recycling and his efforts to remove it from the city budget. It begs the question: who wins when we vote against common-sense policies like securing our water future?

Scottsdale just approved $8.25 million to Vidler Water Company for 15,000 acre-feet of long-term storage credits in the Harquahala Valley. Meanwhile, there is already an established Arizona market where investment firms acquire land, groundwater rights, and storage credits—knowing those water assets will become more valuable as scarcity increases. Let that sink in for a minute.

Big investment firms ultimately win. You ultimately lose. And so do future generations.

But it doesn’t need to be this way. Our city already knows how to recycle water in a cost-effective, safe way. Our advanced treatment facility can handle over 20 million gallons a day. It’s actually reloaded over 70 billion gallons into regional aquifers for nearly 40 years. So why send Scottsdale taxpayer dollars to the coffers of private water sellers when we can invest those dollars in creating a drought-resistant water supply right here at home for substantially less? Phoenix is now building their own APW facility because they understand what’s at stake.

We should look at it this way: Every gallon of water we can recycle today is a gallon we do not have to buy from some outside water broker at tomorrow’s scarcity price.

But if we keep delaying and playing games with water recycling to score cheap political points, Scottsdale families will end up paying more while the people who own and trade scarce water get richer.

That may be what Barry Graham wants. But is that what you want?