Supply declines, drought risk, population growth push cities to seek new water sources.
By Brett Walton, Circle of Blue
Little more than two months ago, on an unusually rainy November evening, the Queen Creek Town Council staked claim to the city’s future.
Queen Creek, located in central Arizona southeast of Phoenix, was founded in 1989 but is already home to some 88,000 people. In a unanimous vote, the council approved a $244 million deal to acquire 12,000 acre-feet of water annually for the next century from the Harquahala groundwater basin, some 90 miles away. (An acre-foot is enough water for about three households per year.)
The purchase, which does not include interest payments or the cost of the infrastructure to pump and move the water, represents 100 years of the young city’s current water demand and gives the fast-growing area access to a water source that will not be subject to Colorado River restrictions, a valuable asset in a state where many cities rely on the beleaguered and shrinking river for a portion of their water.
“This truly is a legacy decision that helps us have water self-sufficiency,” said Leah Martineau, a Queen Creek council member, just before the vote.
The water-supply discussions in the Phoenix suburbs are echoed in council chambers across the American West. In a drying climate with growing populations and thirsty economies, a secure water supply is an urgent matter. Conservation is often the cheapest option. But cities, like financial planners, also want to diversify their water portfolios.
“It’s kind of a truism,” said Peter Mayer, an urban water management expert who runs the consulting company WaterDM. “But if you’re a utility in the western U.S., you’re probably looking for water, new water supply.”
Those quests are taking place in cities large and small, from the Texas coast and the northern plains to California’s high desert.
- McAllen, Texas, a city of nearly 150,000 people in the drought-choked Rio Grande Valley, is embarking on the most expensive public works project in its history, a $185 million facility to purify brackish groundwater.
- In southwest Utah, the Pine Valley Water Supply Project, currently in environmental review, is a proposed scheme to pump groundwater in Beaver County and move it via a 70-mile pipeline to neighboring Iron County for municipal supply and irrigation.
- In central Kansas, the towns of Hays and Russell are jointly pursuing a 67-mile, $140 million pipeline to move groundwater from the R9 Ranch into their service areas. Hays currently relies exclusively on local groundwater.
- Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority, in response to a California mandate to reduce local groundwater use, is seeking to build a 50-mile pipeline to connect to the state canal system, a project that could cost $200 million or more.
- Boosters in western South Dakota are lobbying for a Missouri River diversion to serve the growing Rapid City area. A separate Missouri River diversion in the state’s eastern region is also under discussion.
- Arizona has solicited water augmentation proposals that include desalination plants in Mexico and water reuse facilities in California.
- Corpus Christi, Texas, having rejected a long-planned desalination project as too expensive, is instead adding two groundwater pumping projects beyond the city limits. Acquiring water rights for the Evangeline groundwater project, not including the infrastructure to access it, already cost the city $169 million. Developing the associated pipes, pumps, and wellfields will total several hundred million dollars more.
The surge of interest in water transfers recalls an earlier era of urban development in the American West. Nearly every large city in the region – Albuquerque, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and Seattle – outgrew its local supplies and then benefited from large pipelines or canals that diverted water from basins dozens or hundreds of miles away.
The Central Arizona Project canal, which climbs 336 miles from the Colorado River to the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas, is one of the grandest examples. But because a drying Colorado River has dented the reliability of that water source, local and state officials are once again in the market.
“Arizona is the bleeding edge of the water crisis,” Mayer said. “Their situation is the most dire.”
The search for new supply has some modern twists. Though old-fashioned pipelines are still in fashion – the 142-mile Vista Ridge groundwater pipeline began delivering water to San Antonio in 2020 – cities are increasingly turning to alternatives such as reuse to bolster their portfolios.
One of the largest is Pure Water Southern California, a partnership between the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts. The project aims to produce 150 million gallons of recycled water a day (93,000 acre-feet per year) when fully built out. (The first phase, for 115 million gallons a day, is estimated to cost $9.4 billion.) Metropolitan’s board will consider certifying the project’s final environmental review on February 10. The earliest that water would be delivered is 2035, said Rebecca Kimitch, a spokesperson.
It’s not getting less expensive. The alternative of waiting was not realistic.
J.J. Rodriguez, Mcallen Public utilities
Many of these projects bear the weight of controversy. Irrigators in central Kansas sued to block the Hays and Russell pipeline. That case has reached the Kansas Supreme Court. Landowners near one of Corpus Christi’s groundwater pumping projects complain that their household wells are producing less water than before the city turned on its pumps. The Pine Valley groundwater project in southwest Utah has been the subject of a lawsuit over potential harm to spring-fed ecosystems.
Contests for water are a reflection of the times. Major rivers like the Colorado and Rio Grande are drying as a result of the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. The warming climate is gobbling their moisture. Young cities like Queen Creek are adding thousands of new residents each year. Despite the pressures, the western states are not running out of water, economists say. What they are running out of is cheap water. Utilities managers fear that the longer they wait, the more they’ll pay.
“Essentially, we’re buying 100 years of future supply at today’s pricing,” said Marc Skocypec, Queen Creek utilities director, about the Harquahala groundwater purchase. The deal essentially locks in the price, and eliminates a state requirement to pay a fee for replenishing groundwater pumped locally.
“Our view, which is pretty much standard in the industry, is that water is going to increase in demand and supply is going to be limited,” Skocypec said. “So just simple economics is pricing will increase over time. The cheap water is gone.”
The same supply-and-demand logic in Arizona holds true in southern Texas, where a drying climate and shrinking reservoirs are pushing utilities to fast-track big-ticket water projects.
McAllen, a high-growth city on the Rio Grande, relies on that river for its water. Recent years have been historically dry and Falcon Reservoir, just upstream from McAllen, is 20 percent full. The city will break ground this spring on the most expensive public works project in its history, a facility to remove the salt from brackish groundwater as a new source of municipal water.
“Brackish groundwater had always been on our radar,” said J.J. Rodriguez, assistant general manager of McAllen Public Utilities. “In light of the drought, it got moved up in priority.”
The $185 million project will increase the city’s supply by 12 to 15 percent when it comes online in two to three years, Rodriguez said.
“It’s not getting less expensive,” Rodriguez added. “The alternative of waiting was not realistic.”
This article first appeared on Circle of Blue and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
