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Comment by mech422 | Hacker News Reader

Phoenix is the same way. They do a really good job managing water supplies - for aquifers in particular (PHX sits on top of an underground lake) they use huge 'ponds' to let the water soak back into the aquifer.

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We have to. Arizona is at the bottom of the water rights agreement among the states drawing from the Colorado River. I see a lot of water harvesting structures here, often in the form of parks and greenways.

That’s actually not true, IIRC per capita we are actually better off than California and Nevada.

Edit: Just looked it up and california gets about 5 million acre feet (maf), AZ gets about 2.8maf and Nevada only gets 0.3maf.

So per capita, AZ is doing pretty well allocation-wise.

When I said, “bottom of the water rights”, I mean that the other states has senior water rights, not allocation per capita.

When there is not enough water, priority goes to those holding senior water rights.

(Complicating this is that various tribal nations have water rights senior to the states, and it is only now affecting allocations)

"The Water Knife" by Paolo Bacigalupi, though near-future speculative fiction, gives a pretty solid explanation of the issues. Junior rights don't matter much when there isn't enough water

Yeah - but PHX doesn't really rely on the Colorado as much as the rest of AZ. We also have the Salt and Verde rivers which is a luxury a lot of other parts of the state don't have...

And we're back down to 1950s level of water usage due to less agriculture. Other parts of AZ don't have that reduction in usage, and have to try to do more with less

Fair enough. Even with the additional sources of water, it’s better to design civilization in a way that incorporates natural cycles.

The Intel fab facility does a lot to reclaim water, ultimately pumping used water back into the aquifer. New construction, such as the light rail expansion has purposely-designed swales to also help with that.

If anything, it’s because the ground water has been banked for years that it is mitigating the water restriction in effect in AZ last year.

On the other hand, we have so much precipitation this past winter, that the dams along the Salt River are having daily releases now. If you’re living in Phoenix right now, you might notice the elevated humidity for this time of the year; we might have a monsoon season starting weeks early here.

Man - I miss the 'old style' monsoons with the huge lighting displays...When I first moved to PHX, I used to sit out on the patio everyday just to watch them..

>> They do a really good job managing water supplies - for aquifers in particular

Yes, except for some very bad deals allowing great tracts of land to be sold and leased at below-market rates to Saudi companies without charging or monitoring water use. They grow forage crops like alfalfa that are banned or restricted in Saudi because of excessive water requirements, and ship the crops back to their cattle there. It has made neighbors' wells run dry. They are effectively taking the water from the aquifer and shipping back to Saudi. For free. One of many articles here [0] (guess which political party made the deals).

[0] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-drought-stricken-ar...

That's not PHX though... PHX is lucky/planed well enough not to be in the same predicament a lot of the state is. We have 2 additional sources of water besides the colorado, our water consumption is down because of less argiculture, and the underground lake seems to be holding up pretty well.

Granted, the rest of the state is constantly having to do more with less

> the underground lake seems to be holding up pretty well.

Where can I read more about this? Searching for "Phoenix underground lake" doesn't bring up anything that seems related.

I think "underground lake" is metaphorical. We have some good geology for our aquifer—it's called the Salt River Valley alluvial basin.[1]

The Phoenix Active Management Area has a bunch of water storage[2]. I'd also direct you to the city's 2021 plan.[3]

[1] https://new.azwater.gov/hydrology/groundwater-modeling/salt-... [2] https://waterbank.az.gov/water-storage [3] https://www.phoenix.gov/waterservicessite/Documents/2021%20C...

Thanks for clearing that up... I actually did think it was a 'lake' type thing. - So T.I.L. :-)

Also, SRP has tons of great info. about the water system - its actually pretty cool how them mange it all:

https://www.srpnet.com/grid-water-management/water-managemen...

https://media.srpnet.com/srps-granite-reef-underground-stora...

Thanks, I always forget about SRP since I think about it at the AMA level and get my water from Phoenix.

I think that deal was canceled.

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