AZ city cuts off a neighborhood’s water supply amid drought

[penguingrrl]

Jan 16, 2023 21:29:17 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Now transfer this conversation to a house along the coast that the feds have spent millions to keep standing. Do you feel the same?

Yes, without a doubt. After Sandy I was furious about the places that were rebuilt when they shouldn’t have been.

[icedcoffee]

Jan 16, 2023 21:29:17 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Now transfer this conversation to a house along the coast that the feds have spent millions to keep standing. Do you feel the same?

Yup. We shouldn’t be building along the coast anymore either.

[suburbanzookeeper]

Jan 16, 2023 21:29:17 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Now transfer this conversation to a house along the coast that the feds have spent millions to keep standing. Do you feel the same?

Yes. And I have been in the insurance industry for two decades. 

[bears]

Jan 16, 2023 21:29:17 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Now transfer this conversation to a house along the coast that the feds have spent millions to keep standing. Do you feel the same?

People always seem shocked that highway 12 needs to be completely rebuilt in sections each year. This is the highway that goes down the NC Outerbanks. It's a highway built in shifting sand on a barrier island. It shouldn't be there which is why it's keeps on falling into the ocean!

[pixy0stix]

My people. Lol!

That being said, so many people are going to have be displaced.

[mrspez07]

I read the NYT article about this. A few thoughts:
Phoenix area needs to rein it in already.
Unincorporated county doesn’t mean no regulations, in many places it’s just less taxes and regulations (and services), in this case, no dedicated water supply or agency to manage the water utility.
The Developer found a crappy loophole (that shouldn’t even be a loophole) and hasn’t been told to stop. In most CO jurisdictions, you have to show you have water for any type of development, any size through a will serve letter or actually buy water rights (more common in northern part of front range). Whether there will actually be water there in the future, hard to say, but the water rights are definitely cost prohibitive in many cases. I’ve also had storm water be regulated across same ownership, even if development is only occurring on one parcel.
In CO, specifically Denver metro, there are hundreds of water districts and some Cities that manage their own water. Many of those districts get their water from Denver Water but manage the infrastructure and pass along any rate increases by DW. I wonder what those contracts look like? Will DW customers always have water over districts, even though some served by DW are newer development? That could mean the difference between streets in the same neighborhood and not, as DW snakes all over the suburbs and is adjacent to both big and small water districts.

[meanie]

We almost moved to AZ when I was going into highschool and my mom's job was relocating. One of the places we looked at was Anthem, a new town built in the middle of the desert outside of Scottsdale. At the time they just had McMansions and a rec center, but they said they had plans to bring in all kinds of services, a school, etc.

I looked it up a while ago and it looks like they turned it into a retirement community. Some of my mom's coworkers moved there and their new houses were falling apart because they were so shoddily built. These communities seem like a cash grab, and you are literally in the middle of nowhere.

[wise_rita]

Jan 16, 2023 14:45:58 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Jan 16, 2023 14:00:47 GMT -5 bee20 said:

I enjoyed the commentary on self reliance and also quoting the resident who was asking who was going to help him like we help people in other countries with water.

Yeah, there's quite a big disconnect on what they want. They want self-reliance and freedom from the government, while simultaneously wanting the government to bail them out. They want water to their community, but don't want the governing board that comes along with the water.

About a billion years ago this board had a debate about an article where a family had their house burn down because they didn't pay the $60some a year needed to fund fire services to their area. The fire trucks showed up, but only to keep their neighbors who had paid for the service from burning down.  This entire neighborhood in AZ is like those people with that one house. They want all the services, but don't want to follow the rules to get them.

I'd love to see that thread and the mental gymnastics being done in support the people who did nothing to help themselves.

For anybody really into water shortage stuff, in this part of the country particularly, read The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi. It's pure fiction but it's not out of the realm of possibility, that's for sure.

[icedcoffee]

Is hauled water common in the US? I’ve only ever known either city water (pipes) or wells. Wondering how common hauled water iOS outside of Rio Verde Foothills. Sounds like a disaster.

[karinothing]

Jan 17, 2023 6:30:03 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Is hauled water common in the US? I’ve only ever known either city water (pipes) or wells. Wondering how common hauled water iOS outside of Rio Verde Foothills. Sounds like a disaster.

I think just for more rural communities typically. The only other person I knew that had it lived in a cabin in the woods. 

[dirtyred]

Jan 17, 2023 6:30:03 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Is hauled water common in the US? I’ve only ever known either city water (pipes) or wells. Wondering how common hauled water iOS outside of Rio Verde Foothills. Sounds like a disaster.

In rural-type areas, houses may be on well water.  If you have a dry year and the well starts to dry up, you have to buy water to fill up the well.  So it's not to this degree, but can be fairly common depending on where you live.

[Velar Fricative]

This is why rural living is not for me. I want to put in zero effort to fill up my Brita and take showers.

[pixy0stix]

Jan 17, 2023 6:18:43 GMT -5 wise_rita said:

Jan 16, 2023 14:45:58 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Yeah, there's quite a big disconnect on what they want. They want self-reliance and freedom from the government, while simultaneously wanting the government to bail them out. They want water to their community, but don't want the governing board that comes along with the water.

About a billion years ago this board had a debate about an article where a family had their house burn down because they didn't pay the $60some a year needed to fund fire services to their area. The fire trucks showed up, but only to keep their neighbors who had paid for the service from burning down.  This entire neighborhood in AZ is like those people with that one house. They want all the services, but don't want to follow the rules to get them.

I'd love to see that thread and the mental gymnastics being done in support the people who did nothing to help themselves.

For anybody really into water shortage stuff, in this part of the country particularly, read The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi. It's pure fiction but it's not out of the realm of possibility, that's for sure.

The board was much younger and hadn't watched for their fellow countrymen literally kill themselves because they refused to mask/vaccinate their and for others protection. The argument hinged on emergency services should be free for all. Which I agree it should, but real world issues get in the way.

[simpsongal]

Jan 17, 2023 6:30:03 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Is hauled water common in the US? I’ve only ever known either city water (pipes) or wells. Wondering how common hauled water iOS outside of Rio Verde Foothills. Sounds like a disaster.

I had never heard of it until I read this article but I guess it makes sense for some locations (or camping?).  I grew up on well water, but we also lived above the cohansey aquafer.  And we still conserved water b/c that's just what you should do (!).

I skimmed the article a bit but I didn't see any mention of a water recapture system - you'd think they would have that in all those houses so they could reuse their water as much as possible.
 

[penguingrrl]

Jan 17, 2023 6:30:03 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Is hauled water common in the US? I’ve only ever known either city water (pipes) or wells. Wondering how common hauled water iOS outside of Rio Verde Foothills. Sounds like a disaster.

I’ve never heard of it until reading this article, but I also have never lived in an area that isn’t connected to city water. Not have I lived in an area where major drought risks drying up wells.

[icedcoffee]

We had a well at my parent's lake house growing up and I always remember my dad saying he waited to wash the cars when we were there because it was free water. LOL

This thread prompted me to check how much water we use and we average 126 gallons a day so yeah that old retired guy using 200 a day is crazy. There are 4 of us and a dog and I take a bath in my soaker tub every night! I'm going to see if I can get that number down though.

[macmars45]

We shouldn't be building in the desert or on the coast anywhere in the US. *gavel*

[formerlyak]

Jan 17, 2023 9:51:21 GMT -5 macmars45 said:

We shouldn't be building in the desert or on the coast anywhere in the US. *gavel*

I don’t think you can make this blanket statement about the coast. Clearly ports need to be built. And the CA coastal area where I am at is actually one of the safest in terms of earthquakes because of how the ground buffers the impact of the shaking. We also had less flooding than just a few miles inland, because many of the local parks were built to catch storm run off so that the streets don’t flood. What my sister in law and MIL got from this storm was far worse than us and we are in the same metro - just we are coastal and they are valley.

The weather here is also fairly mild and with new building codes regarding insulation, it’s rare for us to use the heat or a/c. So that’s a plus.

[gretchenindisguise]

Jan 17, 2023 10:44:30 GMT -5 formerlyak said:

Jan 17, 2023 9:51:21 GMT -5 macmars45 said:

We shouldn't be building in the desert or on the coast anywhere in the US. *gavel*

I don’t think you can make this blanket statement about the coast. Clearly ports need to be built. And the CA coastal area where I am at is actually one of the safest in terms of earthquakes because of how the ground buffers the impact of the shaking. We also had less flooding than just a few miles inland, because many of the local parks were built to catch storm run off so that the streets don’t flood. What my sister in law and MIL got from this storm was far worse than us and we are in the same metro - just we are coastal and they are valley.

The weather here is also fairly mild and with new building codes regarding insulation, it’s rare for us to use the heat or a/c. So that’s a plus.

I think it depends on what you mean by coastal. 

I'm picturing the actual houses on cliffs here in La Jolla and up/down the coast. Those are a terrible idea, and from what I understand - to own one you need to show available funds to lose the house and fish it out of the ocean when it inevitably falls in. 

We are 2ish miles from the coast, and I think we're fine here for quite some time. 

If we're classifying both places as "coastal" - that's a problem. 

[pixy0stix]

I think there's room to talk about the finer details. LOL!

In my head, I'm talking about the places that the feds keep trying to prop up, but are going to be inhabitable eventually. The places that are going to flood no matter what happens, and we should probably have the hard conversations about relocating those people instead of kicking the can down the road until it's no longer an option. (Aka, like what happened in the OP article where the people were told 7 years ago to start finding a new source of water.)

[wawa]

Jan 17, 2023 9:51:21 GMT -5 macmars45 said:

We shouldn't be building in the desert or on the coast anywhere in the US. *gavel*

as others have said...the nuance here is...nuanced.

places with copious shoreline should still be building things that make sense to utilize that asset.  Those things should be built with an eye toward long term resiliency and passive flood control. human civilization was generally founded in river valley flood plains- it's not like a TOTAL deal breaker that water sometimes comes into places if planned for instead of engineered into invisibility and catastrophic failure. We all just need to be understanding how much more often that'll be compared to how it's been and putting things that make sense in those areas.

Now, places that will just be UNDER under water full time?  coastline wetlands restoration and get out.  Parts of the S. Jersey barrier islands are ALREADY generally underwater in spots at a full moon high tide and everybody moves their cars to the middle of the island or a high bridge if there's a lot of rain rolling in...so that's a giggle to me because people have a lot of money in that real estate.  But there's plenty of coast in the US that isn't sandy 2' elevation for half a mile from water. We have advanced sea level rise modeling for a reason because it's going to vary a lot locally based on actual coastline features. 

Hyper local example in the chesapeake - top half is an area where if I could afford it, I'd buy waterfront, the bottom is in the same county to the south.  Left is current water levels, right is +7 feet (which I think is the most recent "oh fuck" end of the century estimate from NOAA if we 100% fail to curb any anything)  Some of the houses in the top are built WAY too close to cliffs that will see a fuckton more erosion (no thank you) but by and large those coastlines will stay habitable for the long long term.  the folks further south where the terrain flattens out?  nopity nope nope.  they shouldn't be building SHIT.  




I know a lot less about what, if anything, makes sense in the desert because I don't live there, but I have to imagine there's nuance there too. I am curious what that nuance is now...but unfortunately I have to dig out of this rabbit hole and do actual work work now...  Tag me if somebody knows things and wants to tell us about it.  

[formerlyak]

Jan 17, 2023 11:18:48 GMT -5 gretchenindisguise said:

Jan 17, 2023 10:44:30 GMT -5 formerlyak said:

I think it depends on what you mean by coastal. 

I'm picturing the actual houses on cliffs here in La Jolla and up/down the coast. Those are a terrible idea, and from what I understand - to own one you need to show available funds to lose the house and fish it out of the ocean when it inevitably falls in. 

We are 2ish miles from the coast, and I think we're fine here for quite some time. 

If we're classifying both places as "coastal" - that's a problem. 

Good point. Here Palos Verdes is like that. Multi-million dollar houses on cliffs that are eroding. They have these big stilt things to hold them up on the cliff side of the house. There is a road on the back side (water side) of the peninsula that moves with the erosion. And they are building new condos on that road. That is a bit insane. But people will buy them because of the view, which on a clear day is amazing. But not worth my house falling into the ocean.

[Velar Fricative]

If the house has to be on stilts, it shouldn’t be built (or rebuilt). I can’t stand the fact that there are already new houses where Sandy obliterated neighborhoods. But it’s totally cool since the houses are on stilts now. /sarcasm

[pixy0stix]

WaPo had this article about the places hit on Newfoundland by Fiona (gift link) - wapo.st/3w6Pnky


It's interesting that a place that hasn't been hit repeatedly takes one devastating blow and the residents are all, "Yeah, we probably shouldn't rebuild." While meanwhile in the US we're all, "Dur, prolly won't get hit again, let's build it back!" Repeatedly. Over and over again. Granted, I'm sure there are other people in Newfoundland that are pushing to rebuild back, and this was just the slant the reporter chose to take, but it makes me wonder what is wrong with us in the US as a country as a whole.

[kadams767]

This is a bit off-topic, but I am constantly amazed (flabbergasted?) at the differentiation and discrepancies in utilities and utility infrastructure across the United States. I get that standardization is so hard because of the sheer land area of the country, but I do wonder about other countries and whether or not other places have so many different types of utilities and utility infrastructure that differ from place to place.

[aurora]

Jan 17, 2023 8:06:22 GMT -5 karinothing said:

Jan 17, 2023 6:30:03 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Is hauled water common in the US? I’ve only ever known either city water (pipes) or wells. Wondering how common hauled water iOS outside of Rio Verde Foothills. Sounds like a disaster.

I think just for more rural communities typically. The only other person I knew that had it lived in a cabin in the woods. 

Dry cabins aren't uncommon in Alaska. I mean, most people do live in houses with well or city water, but I always knew some people who had to haul water or have it delivered, and it wasn't a surprising thing.

[MixedBerryJam]

Jan 16, 2023 12:27:11 GMT -5 @villainv said:

Those two retirees used 200 gallons a day?!?! … it literally didn’t occur to people when they developed this area and bought houses that this water was not in an unlimited supply?!?

They assumed they’d outlive the issue and it’d be someone else’s problem.

[sonrisa]

I took ‘coast’ to be shorthand for those houses near eroding cliffs, hurricane flooding barrier islands, and other naturally vulnerable places.
.

We bought where we did because it isn’t at risk for tidal or mountain runoff flooding. I refused to consider any house built on stilts (to accommodate steep hills, not floods),

There are other nearby neighborhoods built on bayfill landfill (ie. Vulnerable in earthquakes) where the street gutters sometimes reverse during high rain + king tides. 70-80 years ago when they were built, home buyers didn’t think about climate change. But I don’t understand people who choose those to buy there now. It isn’t the dramatic damage of east coast hurricanes, Malibu mansions sliding into the sea, or low lying towns near the Mississippi River that get inundated, but nature is still coming for you.

[notreal]

Scottsdale is 100% in the right and the headlines for this story annoy me so much. They didn't cut the water off for people, they stopped allowing large trucks to fill up at a bulk rate which is where the subdivision got their water. The subdivision should have never been allowed to be constructed in the first place without a permanent water source especially since the Arizona standard requires a permanent water source that will theoretically be viable for 100 years.

And the subdivision is PROTESTING because the town of Scottsdale won't allow them to use their infrastructure to process outside water. That's like suing a restaurant because they won't let you cook your thanksgiving dinner there.

Regulations are so evil but just allow one person to get cholera and all of a sudden, "where's the regulations, why was this allowed to happen?"

I know I didn't have anything to add, I just wanted to vent about the situation.

[dutchgirl678]

I read the whole article. I really don't understand why someone would willingly move to AZ right now with the water shortages that are already there and the hot weather. We bought a new SFH in OR several years ago and one couple in our neighborhood lived there for a few years and last year they sold and bought a new home in AZ in one of those 55+ communities way outside Phoenix. The complex has three pools, a golf course, and they just had their own backyard pool installed as well. That whole area is growing like crazy and I'm sure it will run into problems soon as well.