Arizona Water Shortage
If you haven’t already heard, Arizona is on its way to a first-ever water shortage. As a pool leak detection company, we feel it is our duty to help spread awareness and work with our community to help slow it down. While it is a serious issue, the Town of Gilbert has been planning for ways to conserve water for a while now. Thanks to their efforts, the residents, businesses and all other community members, the shortage has been slowed down. But it can’t stop there. In order to continue saving our water supply for future generations, we need to carry on with educating the public on ways we can conserve in our homes, businesses, and schools.
Lake Mead’s Low Water Levels Are Shown Here By The Obvious Ring On The Surrounding Land That Shows Where The Water Used To Be. (December 2019 Ian James/The Republic)
About The Water Shortage
In the last few years, it has become apparent that the Colorado River’s biggest reservoir, Lake Mead, has lost an alarming amount of water. When looking at the photos, you can clearly see how much the water has dropped over the years.
In fact, Lake Mead has dropped 130 feet since 2000 and sits at only 38% of its capacity, according to AZCentral. These quickly declining water levels are leading us towards Arizona’s first water shortage. Experts say that this is all thanks to aridification, the process of a region becoming increasingly arid, or dry over a long period of time. Climate change, a two-decade Megadrought, and overallocation of the Colorado’s water, has sped this long-term transformation up even more.
What Is Being Done
A couple years ago, reps from each state that use water from the Colorado River, got together and created the Drought Contingency Plan. They put this together in hopes of it slowing down the water loss rate and easing into cutbacks on water. While it has lowered the amount of water being taken from Lake Mead, the levels continue to decline.
It’s expected that by next year, we will officially be in a Tier-1 Shortage. Once we reach that level, we will be facing the worst cutbacks on water that we have seen so far. While water supplies will be reduced in Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico, they say Arizona will be seeing the worst of it. AZ gets almost 40% of its water from the Colorado river. Of that 40%, a good majority of it goes to the CAP Canal to make its way to our cities, farms, and tribal land.
They have been very open about how hard these cutbacks will be for us and how our state officials plan to soften the blow. Part of Arizona’s plan is to share resources and offer payments to those who supply us with some of their own water. Two of the main contributors to thank are the Colorado River Tribes and The Gila River Indian Community.
The Reality Of The Water Shortage
The reality is that when 2022 comes around, these huge cutbacks will take away about a third of the water distributed to the CAP canal. While we haven’t seen it yet, these reductions will call for a lot of change regarding how our water supply is used. Priorities will change drastically and it definitely won’t be easy. This plan should at least help make it a little more tolerable when it happens.
“Even though the consequences are inevitable, he said, there is a stark difference between planned pain and unexpected, sudden pain. Ted Cooke (general manager for the CAP) likened it to the difference between getting injured in an accident and scheduling an elective surgery.” (James, I. (2021 April 30). Facing a Colorado River Shortage. www.azcentral.com)
Thankfully, there has been a conservation effort in place for years to prepare for this event. Because of this, the water supplied to our cities shouldn’t be impacted under the plan and we won’t be legally required by the state to limit our personal use of the water.
However, scientific research is showing what this crisis could eventually look like in the future and its not pretty. We could eventually be seeing some extremely low levels of water. While the current plan will help us stay afloat during the shortage, we will need to collectively take more measures to tackle the long term effects of climate change on our water supplies.
This crisis is real and is only going to get more challenging over time. We, as a community, need to start taking action and making changes now before it’s too late
We Must Work Together
While they have plans in place to help ease us into these changes, this problem will continue to exist for decades to come. It’s pretty much inevitable but that doesn’t mean we can’t do something to slow it down. We can shift our priorities and become more conscious of how we use the water we are supplied with. While we do more research and talk to more experts to discuss solutions, we want you to keep this crisis in mind.
Until then, we do know one thing. As a leak detection company we witness water getting wasted every single day. Clients call and say they have had to constantly refill their pool everyday for WEEKS. When you think about it, that is a ton of water being wasted. For example, say someone calls in and says they are losing a 1/2 inch of water a day. That might not seem like a lot, but that 1/2 inch can equal to hundreds of gallons of water being lost each day. We can’t stress it enough how important it is to fix a pool leak as soon as it is suspected. We usually explain how it can cause a slew of issues such as higher water bills, costly damage, etc. But we now see it in another light. This is not just about saving you money anymore. This is about a state wide issue that will start affecting our communities if we don’t take action to make a change.
How You Can Help With The Water Shortage
- Plant low-water use & drought-tolerant plants and shrubs
- Check all hoses. spicots, sprinklers, & timers for proper operation and leaks, regularly
- Install a water-efficient drip irrigation system
- Water during early morning hours to minimize evaporation
- Use 2-3 inch layers of mulch around plants to minimize evaporation as well
- Water deeply, but less frequently
- Weed your yard on a regular basis as weeds compete with other plants for water
- Shut off automatic watering systems when it rains
- Regularly check faucets & pipes for leaks. Repair as needed.
- Replace high-volume toilets (3.5 gl. or more per flush) with new standard of 1.6 or other high efficiency/dual flush models
- When washing dishes by hand, do not let the water run. Fill one side with wash water, and the other with rinse water
- Do not pre-rinse dishes, unless absolutely necessary. Most new dishwashers don’t rewuire this
- Only run washing machines & dishwashers when doing a FULL load
- Go for the water-saving models when buying new appliances
- Reduce the use of kithcen sink garbage disposals as they require a lot of water to operate
- Track your water usage by regularly checking your water meter/bill. If you notice an unusual rise in water usage, check for leaks
- Keep showers under 5 minutes
- Support projects that use reclaimed wastewater for irrigation & other uses
- Encourage friends and family to take part in being water-conscious
- Encourage local educators & government to help promote a water conservation ethic among children & adults
- Report significant water losses from broken pipes, sprinklers, and hydrants
For more articles on water conservation, please check out The Town of Gilbert’s Website at: