Scottsdale Is Letting a Toilet Joke Drown Its Best Water Plan

By Vanessa Rogers

Scottsdale made national news this week, and not in a way worth celebrating. An Associated Press report that ran from Houston to Las Vegas told how “poop water” attacks helped kill the city’s plan to purify recycled water for drinking. The headline in some outlets was blunt: a wealthy suburb dropped its recycling plan over election-year claims.

The timing could hardly be worse. Arizona is absorbing the largest cut in the Colorado River shortage, losing 760,000 acre-feet of supply. Scottsdale gets roughly 70% of its water from that river.

Lake Powell change. Photo Credit: NASA

What the Council Actually Did

The decision came quietly in June. During budget season, the City Council removed dedicated funding for the program. In its place, the council approved a vague $100 million allocation for “new water sources and supplies.” As a result, the plan to add purified water directly to Scottsdale’s supply by 2027 is off the table, at least for now.

No one has explained where that $100 million worth of water will come from. That silence should worry every ratepayer.

A 28-Year Track Record

This is not an experiment. Scottsdale’s advanced water treatment plant has been running since 1998. It uses ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet treatment. In 2019, Scottsdale earned Arizona’s first direct potable reuse permit, one of only three in the country at the time.

That work continues today. Scottsdale still sends purified water underground to recharge its aquifers. The only thing shelved is the final, logical step of sending that same water straight to the tap.

Water purification system in Scottsdale. Photo credit: Arizona Republic

In fact, the plant could serve 60,000 households. About 7,500 people have already tasted the water at city events. “We’ve been doing it for 28 years,” Scottsdale Water’s Bryan Cassens told the AP.

Moreover, less than 1% of the city’s wastewater comes from toilets. The “sewage” framing is theater, not science.

The Politics of Disgust

Michelle Ugenti-Rita has been the program’s loudest critic. According to the AP, she released a May campaign ad with actor Rob Schneider holding up clear and brown liquids. The ad accused her opponents of pushing sewage water. She did not respond to the AP’s repeated requests for comment.

Meanwhile, Councilman Barry Graham called the program a last resort “in a water crisis, not now.” He added, “I can’t just assume that every visitor and resident is going to trust the experts.”

That is a remarkable standard for public policy. Leaders are supposed to make the case for sound decisions, not retreat from them because the case takes effort.

The Question Voters Should Ask

Ben Grumbles of the Environmental Council of the States summed it up well. “It can be frustrating when there are politicians scoring a cheap, fast point,” he said.

Scottsdale spent decades building one of the West’s most respected water-reuse programs. Now other Arizona cities are lining up to copy it, while Scottsdale shelves its own.

Early ballots will soon be in mailboxes. Every council candidate should answer one simple question. If not purified water, then what, exactly, and at what cost? A punchline is not a water plan.