Cities around Arizona already have begun collaborating on water treatment plants and sharing data to better allocate water resources in the region.
There is no single solution or source that will solve the region’s long-term water security, local officials say. But a coordinated effort is underway to better adapt to a future with less Colorado River water.The Colorado River is in crisis, as the region suffers from two decades of drought — the worst megadrought in 1,200 years.
Dent spoke at a conference earlier this month at the University of Arizona, where 300 water officials, tribal leaders and environmental experts representing 30 Arizona communities and nine states sought wide-ranging solutions to the West’s depleting resource, from experimental agriculture technologies to databases for locating safe wells on tribal reservations.
Arizona has been reusing its water for decades, said Karen Peters, the director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. While it has traditionally used recycled wastewater for irrigation or to recharge groundwater aquifers, the state now is developing new rules and guidance that will lead to widespread use for drinking purposes, she said.
Communities need to do more to collaborate with their neighboring municipalities to reduce overall water risk, said Richael Young, a senior economist at ERA Economics, LLC, an economic analysis company that created a digital, up-to-date tool that helps Phoenix- and Tucson-area communities buy and sell water to prevent water shortages.
As water scarcity worsens, the “what’s mine is mine” mindset among communities is changing, she added, shifting from fighting to collaboration.
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