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Comment by toss1 | Hacker News Reader

>> 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...

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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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