The Next Time You Turn-On-The-Tap Think About This

Let's start with a simple statement:
Water is the most precious commodity here in the desert.
It's a natural resource in the normal cycle of things. Here in the Salt River Valley (Rio Salado in Spanish) going back before recorded "pre-history" when the people who came before managed to engineer with primitive technology a system of open canals to deliver water to the land.
One of the problems with open canals is an evaporation rate of 40%. Not very efficient.    

Now let's focus on the word "commodity". It's something that's produced, processed and gets sold and bought and traded in the market. It's something we can't live without. Every household uses 7-10,000 gallons in less than one week and industries like data centers consume huge amounts of both water and electricity on top of that adding to the demand. As you can see in the Pie Chart to the right, here in the City of Mesa's FY17/18 Annual Budget, there's an expenditure of over $97,000,000 in that one year alone. That's in addition to the over $350,000,000 to build two new Wastewater Treatment Plants, Greenfield and Signal Butte in the northeast and southeast corners of Mesa's 125,000 acres.

If you want to see more data on water utilities and other open expenditures, go > here .
For some reason right from beginning here in Mesa, land fraud seems to run with the territory when A.J. Chandler incorporated The Mesa Water Company (that the City of Mesa now owns) and gained title to lands of over 18,000 acres. Let's put that on the side for now.
Ready to deal with climate change? What's seen on the surface runs deep in more ways than one; the aquifers are getting drained and we need to do ________what?
How cities bank on future water supply underground  
"Valley cities rely mostly on dams and reservoirs for their water needs, but the snowpack feeding those reservoirs was near record low this year. That means managers are looking to future water supplies underground. . . Even after Even 35 years of managing the Salt and Verde rivers for the Salt River Project [SRP], Charlie Ester has dealt with more dry years than flood events as the Valley marches into another year of drought. He said this is the 21st year of the drought; other experts say it’s the 18th.
Read more >> AZ Big Media Reprint of story from Cronkite News
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At the same time stories in the media showing coyotes and bears invading neighborhoods and wild Salt River horses having to get rescued out of canals by the police have a message that doesn't get through - there's a drought no matter what Governor Ducey wants to say about it. Just as well, there are other stories in the media about a bribery case involving schemes about water utilities and dirty politics.

Here in what's now named "The Valley of The Sun" - could it by accident be for the promise of renewable solar energy? - All the dirty politics have risen to the surface before, most recently in a number of articles by Rogue Columnist Jon Talton that dive into some troubled waters across time:

Rogue Columnist: Phoenix 101: Canals

Jun 2, 2018

"Beneath all the concrete, asphalt, and gravel of today's metropolitan Phoenix is some of the richest soil on earth. No wonder early settlers called it the Nile River Valley of the United States, or, with more aching pathos given what's happened, American Eden. Add water and anything will grow here. Getting the water from the Salt River was the challenge — one solved with canals.

The Hohokam (750-1450 AD) built at least 500 miles of canals in the Salt River Valley. The mileage might have been in the thousands. They created the most advanced irrigation civilization in the pre-Columbian Americas. . .
The genius of Jack Swilling — Confederate deserter, Indian fighter, prospector, drunk, opium addict, brawler, first town postmaster and justice of the peace, adoptive father of an Apache boy, cherished friend of many — was that he understood the significance of the Hohokam canals, which laid dormant for more than 400 years. They were not mere prehistoric curiosities. They were the means of building a modern empire, . . 
Talton's story continues > http://www.roguecolumnist.com 
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Here's one from last year:

Bill Gates buys Arizona land — hilarity, or tragedy, ensues

Originally published November 9, 2017 at 11:08 am Updated November 9, 2017 at 6:03 pm

"Bill Gates’ Cascade Investment recently purchased an $80 million stake in desert land west of Phoenix. Unless Gates plans to turn the land into a preserve, he might want to know a few things that the locals didn’t tell him. 

The big news this week in metropolitan Phoenix is that Bill Gates’ Cascade Investment purchased an $80 million stake in desert land to the west of town. Boosters are excited because powerful development interests hope to turn this 24,000 acres into 80,000 houses, pushing sprawl farther into the pristine and threatened Sonoran Desert.
Unless BillG plans to turn the land into a preserve, he might want to know a few things that the locals didn’t tell him. (And to put my cards on the table, I am a fourth-generation Arizonan, former columnist for the Phoenix newspaper, and continue to write, pro bono, a blog on Arizona history and issues)
> First, Arizona doesn’t have enough water to continue these kind of developments, no matter what the mouthpieces of the Real Estate Industrial Complex say. At nearly 7 million people, the state is way past population overshoot. Colorado River water is oversubscribed — too many straws in the river — and climate change is affecting the mountain snow that replenishes it. The same is true of other renewable sources such as the Salt River Project. Groundwater pumping continues despite decades-long efforts to reduce it, depleting limited and stressed aquifers. The water situation is complex, but also deliberately opaque.
> Second, climate change poses a clear and present danger to Arizona now. Summers are significantly hotter and lasting longer than a few decades ago. Massive wildfires are common, another new phenomenon. Whether Phoenix will even be inhabitable by mid-century is an open question. . .
More? then go the Source: Seattle Times/Business and The Economy