Perfect Segway

I have now refined potential solutions of growing Arizona water demand by discussing options with decision-making professionals to stormwater capture, storage, and conveyance.  By no means is this the only solution (desal, recycle/reuse).  But it seems to be the largest potential contributor.



There are now a growing number of new policies and building codes to for stormwater compliance.  New development often times must adhere to new construction methods including the ones shown here:

   

The encouraging news is sometimes the same as the source of our water problems:  The Southwestern US is growing.  It is easy to assume that new buildings will be built & old infrastructure will be removed with old buildings.  (Hey, it's the Arizona way - everything must look new and shiny!  If it doesn't, tear it down and build a new strip mall!).  In the midst of all of this new construction (and old destruction) Arizona needs to make sure we have corresponding new codes that require stormwater infrastructure.  This way much of the cost will be folded into construction on a micro-scale.  When these smaller systems can be tied into a state, county, or muni perhaps some of the captured water can even be sold to water providers for treatment and direct or indirect human consumption!  Incentivizing private entities to do so seems to be working (albeit slowly) with solar power meeting energy demands.  Why not stormwater?  Everyone stands to win!




Coincidence or not, I happened to be enrolled in Water Harvesting (SWES 554) at the UA this upcoming spring.  I can't wait to learn concepts, techniques, & policies from Allan Matthias to apply in my personal life and professional career!

Until we our society has enough gumption to look in the mirror and deal with the source of our water problems - unmitigated growth and southwestern migration - we will have to continue to band-aid our growing water resource problems.  Consider stormwater capture, storage, and conveyance ONE BIG BAND-AID!

Fresh Faces in CAWCD

One month ago, the Arizona electorate in the 3 county (Maricopa, Pinal, and Pima) service area of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District (CAWCD) popularly re-elected two current members of the Board of Directors and elected 3 new members.  Compared to several of the "Old Guard", the three new members have quite diverse backgrounds.

Terry Goddard is certainly the newbie with the most name recognition.  He was the Mayor of Phoenix from 1984 to 1990.  He went on to serve as the State Attorney General from 2003 until 2011.

Heather Macre is represents a youth movement of sorts. Compared to the rest of the board she is very young in age and to Arizona.  I am not sure of her background other than qualifications on her website.  I do know one thing though, her youth will serve future generations well.  Her position & influence will have consequences she will have to live with and see through in her lifetime, unlike other board members.

And finally, Guy Carpenter was elected.  Mr. Carpenter will be one of a small handful of board members that has an extensive background in water resources.  He has been employed as a city water resource manager in The Valley and as a consultant in a myriad of water issues as an engineer at Carollo Engineers.  His current "day job" is VP & Water Resource & Reuse Group Leader.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Mr. Carpenter today in an informal setting and pick his brain on issues he feels currently need to be addressed and are fluid in the policy arena.

He spoke of his disappointment in the disconnect between land management/uses and their downstream effects on potable water supplies in The Valley.  Of particular interest, we talked of how fires in the upper Salt River Watershed were carbon loading into Salt River Project reservoirs and the costs and stresses that can put onto municipal supplies because of the extra treatment it will require.  When hydrocarbons in SRP-supplied water have contact time with microbiological-killing chlorine (added by Valley municipalities to mitigate microbial growth, particularly in the hot summers) they form what is called tri-halo methanes (THMs) and halo-acetic acids (HAAs).  These can be harmful to humans and must be removed.  I informed him that the U of A is doing great research in the experimental watersheds and rangelands peripheral to Tucson.  I also told him how my advisor, Gregg Garfin, and others are trying hard to bridge the gap between the academic scientific research community and decision-makers statewide.  These decision-makers are slowly becoming less resistant to outside research and we both hope that relationship would continue to grow.

One of the most frightening scenarios we discussed was the risk-assessment and provisional emergency plans should infrastructure of the CAP canal be compromised.  As some of you may know, the canal was breached (extremely far upstream, relative to the population corridor in Central-South AZ) earlier in the fall.  Mr. Carpenter stated that because the canal failure happened upstream of Lake Pleasant, service was not interrupted and continued on as normal.  However, he said that if this failure happened down stream of Lake Pleasant, not only would water deliveries cease for the foreseeable future, there is no contingency plan in place to bring new (temporary) supply on line.  Although much water has been pumped back into the aquifer through Central Arizona Water Replenishment District (CAWRD, under the umbrella of CAWCD), there is no production/recovery wells to pump the groundwater rapidly enough as not to notice a disruption in service.  This seems like it should be a high priority, given this day of natural disasters and terror targets.

Mr. Carpenter also spoke to growing population and demand in Arizona.  Contractors to CAP have relative comfort regarding their delivery reliability.  However, smaller municipalities and water districts do no have this luxury.  There is talk of them banding together to create a more formidable voice regarding their own supplies.  In one way this is good, because the smaller townships and water districts that do not have a voice, one day might have a seat at the table with the big players.  One the other hand, it just creates competition in a already competitive market.  This premise is currently supported by a program sponsored by CAP called Add Water.

As a reuse/recycle expert, Carpenter told me "if every single drop of effluent in the United States were recycled" it would increase our supply total by a measly 6%.  Nothing to sneeze at, but hardly the solution to a burgeoning demand.

Somehow, it always comes back to stormwater capture.  Perhaps it's me.  Perhaps I inevitably steer us back to it as our next great undeveloped source of water.  But, both Carpenter and Chan (whom I interviewed November 30th, 2012) believe in the vast potential of stormwater capture and usage.

An interesting scene played out recently regarding stormwater, the City of Prescott, & the City of Scottsdale.  I will blog about Scottsdale's blunder tomorrow.

Manager Grace Chan, Resource Planning & Development Section

On Friday afternoon I had the pleasure of speaking with Grace Chan, Manager of the Resource Planning & Development Section of The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.  As an agency of a region that has dealt with consistent unprecedented growth since its inception, MWD is well versed in policy regarding growth in its service area.  Its primary roles are to import supplementary water to meet Southern California water demands (including as a contractor to The State Water Project) and to coordinate regional planning efforts.  Ms. Chan's section is the department that deals with growth.  They are responsible for identifying potential challenges and designing programs to meet and overcome those challenges.  These programs are to incentivize conservation, recycling, etc.

Their guiding document is the Integrated Resource Plan, or IRP.  In short, it is a 3-pronged approach:

1) Using past data to provide a known history of supply and demand variations.
2) Going above and beyond to cover spikes in demand and dips in supply.
3) "Foundational" actions to guard against future uncertainties.

#3 is what I have been interested in addressing.

Of these actions, seawater desalination, stormwater capture, and potable reuse are the three primary pillars of future supply augmentation.

Stormwater capture seems to be the hot public trend among the three.  Because of channelization of the Los Angeles River and other streams earlier in the 20th Century, large precipitation events lose 100,000s acre feet of water to the ocean every year.  The quick basin exportation of stormwater was done in the name of flood control.  Even though much is captured and recharged, more stormwater could be conserved and folded back into MWD's supply portfolio.  There are thing prohibitive reasons an infrastructure has not been built to maximize capture:

1) Cost
2) Property/Land issues.  Right of way.  Cost of purchasing land vs. what the land is worth to development.
3) Idle - the infrastructure is well worth it for the couple times of years it would catch runoff that is not currently being used, but what would it do the other 360 days?  Sit idle?  If it could be used as a multi-purpose channel, perhaps feasibility would increase.

This "Aggressive Stormwater Capture" has been most successful in Orange County where they only lose 10,000s acre feet of stormwater each year.  The rest is captured and recharged.

I asked Ms. Chan if there is any infrastructure improvements planned in the immediate future.  She said beyond regularly scheduled maintenance, there is none.  The 5 existing water treatment plans suffice for operational supply and demand right now.

Of note, a plan for a desalination plant was approve in the San Diego area November 29th.  As part of its incentivization programs, MWD pays for the difference in development of new supplies from what MWD charges its customers.  This is a very effective program to have local districts take more control over their own supplies without being financially punished for doing so.