Water-do we have enough?
I attended the Arizona Annual Convetion last week and I’ll write a few articles about what I learned…check back for updates. Today’s writing is about the water situation in the west. The state sent a representitive from the water department to speak to us.
The good news is we’ve recently entered into the first multi-state agreement on how to manage the water in 85 years. Hard to imagine it takes 85 years for 7 states to agree on how to use the most vital resource we have. This agreement regulates the usage and amount of water each state will receive and should ensure enough for all!
In Arizona the water we use is received as follows- 36% comes from the Colorado River, 18% from all other rivers and 36% from groundwater. If you think about it, one river becomes very important and since it borders several states it was important that there was a binding agreement between them.
The usage for the state is broken up as- 74% goes to farming, Municipal is 20% and industrial usage accounts for 6% of the water usage.
In Arizona we rely on the snow fall for the vast amount of the water we use. The good news is the snowpack this year is at 147% of the average so they’re expecting the resivours levels will increase this spring. Currently Lake Powell is at 47% and Lake Mead is at 50% which doesn’t sound like good news but even with the current conditions they expect us to be able to support up to 40 million people.
One last thing on water, a questions was asked about the level of drugs that is being found in drinking water. Every state is aware of this and have been for a while. The belief is the levels are not enough to be considered a real concern but they will continue to monitor this and research the effect of this on our lives.
