They don’t want a handout, they just want a handout
Those people in Rio Verde Foothills are still complaining because they decided to live in an unincorporated settlement in the desert during a drought and for some reason no one is willing to give them water,
There is only one paved road, no street lights, storm gutters or pipes in the ground. Instead residents have wells – or water tanks outside their homes, which they used to fill at a local pipe serviced by Scottsdale.
Why did they build there then? If there’s no municipal water supply, why decide “This is where we’ll build our new house”?
Laura Weaver told the Guardian her community didn’t “want a handout” from Scottsdale. They want time to figure out a plan and, to her, Scottsdale shutting the water off is unneighborly and un-American, she said.
So she does want a handout from Scottsdale.
Being neighborly is all very well, but settling in a desert with no access to water as climate change spirals out of control is idiotic. I suspect Scottsdale doesn’t think it has enough water to share with feckless neighbors.
“Think of the sacrifices some Americans have made for each other. And then these people are sitting here saying, ‘Well, you know, you should just dry up and die.’ Really? I just find it mind-blowingly unpatriotic,” she said.
Mm. It’s their fault. Scottsdale owes her their water, but she and her neighbors don’t owe Scottsdale the good sense not to build a town in a place with no water source. Make it make sense.
Incorporating could give the community more options for water supply in future but forming an official town or city brings requirements, such as paved roads, street lights, more taxation and rules. This would be expensive but also change the secluded, quaint feel of Rio Verde Foothills, where people own chickens, donkeys, horses and ride motorbikes straight out their doors to nearby Tonto national forest.
Fine then, keep your secluded quaint feel, but find your own damn water.
Entitlement is a dangerous drug.
It goes back to a booboo with the counting.
Twenty years ago, scientists overestimated the amount of water in the Colorado River, having measured based on an abnormally rainy season, said Sinjin Eberle, intermountain west communications director for American Rivers, a non-profit campaigning to protect and restore US waterways.
Oops.
The river has 20% less water than it did in 2000, Eberle said. More than 40 million people in seven states served by the Colorado River basin – Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, New Mexico and Arizona – depend on the mighty but dwindling watercourse that flows through the Grand Canyon.
Now, as rain is scarcer and the region’s population has increased, there will be more water shortages, even as sprawling developments insist on golf courses, grassy parks and fountains.
Even in Rio Verde Foothills new home construction carries on apace, while the water is not there to support expansion.
Never mind, just blame it all on Scottsdale.
The builders don’t care, they’re still building homes. What I don’t get is why the banks are funding the properties with mortgages – I doubt that these people are paying cash for their homes.
These libertarian types are learning that municipal governments have some purpose after all, aren’t they?
Meanwhile, I’ve seen TV commercials in Michigan to.sttract business, and presumably employees, to Arizona.
Who the Hell is issuing planning permission for all those homes with no infrastructure?
Back in Twenty Hundred, we bought an old farmyard surrounded by fields near a tiny village; the old house was long gone, having been replaced by a hideous square, two storey cube with an asbestos roof sometime in the middle of the last century. It was a derelict barn (and had been for years) when we bought the land. Our single storey house sits where the barn used to be. We kept all the ancient outbuildings, including the famine cottage which had been used as a pigsty for a century.
One of the many restrictions on the planning permission was that we had to build a proper sewage treatment unit, because there’s never been a sewage pipeline to the village. We also sunk a deep well for all our incoming water needs.
This is Ireland; we don’t have a water shortage. I can’t imagine building in a drought-prone area and expecting the existing residents of a nearby town to hand over their water. Not a very neighbourly thing to do!
Soon enough, everywhere will be a dangerous, bad place to live in some way or another due to climate change.
Anything wrong right now with Philadelphia, do you think? I’m thinking of moving there.
It’s always sunny in Philadelphia, Anna.
They are choosing stupidity.
They can’t very well blame it on God, can they?
Scottsdale could offer thoughts and prayers, though. I’ve heard that this is a useful response to mass shootings. Might work for water too. You don’t know ’til you try.
Overestimating the flow in the Colorado River is nothing new; in fact, it is SOP. Too much allotted in the early 20th century to the states in the area, and Mexico had to fight for the water it needed. Now the Colorado frequently runs dry before it reaches the ocean.
It seems like planners wait for a rainy period to determine the flow in the river. Sort of like they’re doing it on purpose.
Interesting. The article says the scientists overestimated the amount of water in the Colorado River, having measured based on an abnormally rainy season. I wonder if the planners planned it that way while the scientists protested – “Ok we’ll give you the measurements but you need to do it again when it’s not an unusually rainy season.” I wonder if there was any friction, conflict, controversy, protest, objection, struggle.
I don’t really know about this most recent time; I’m more knowledgeable about the early twentieth century overestimation, which was exacerbated by California taking more than their allotment, leading the governor of Arizona to declare war on California and call out the National Guard.
I retired from the city planning profession last year in California, and one of the constant drumbeats is we “need to build more housing”. In theory, I agree with this. Most of the opposition to housing is class bias and a fervid desire to freeze things as they are among the affluent middle and upper classes. And yet, I also wondered if it was a good idea to bring more and more people into a state with long term water issues (not as bad as Arizona, which is an amazing example of human self delusion), seismic threat, air quality issues, etc. I think this while acknowledging the horrors of $800,000 50-year old tract houses in ugly subdivisions. :). The “problem” may be “solving” itself as people are choosing to locate in places where the suburban Ponzi scheme can still be sustained for the moment. But since many of these escape pods have the same…or worse…ecological realities, one wonders.
It reminds me of the situation in Paradise,CA, a foothill enclave on the western edge of the mountains which was destroyed by a devastating wildfire This deep red, independent, Trump loving retirement community of course saw a New York Times Cletus Safari*. My favorite was “The gubmint should subsidize our lifestyle as we don’t want to live in those crowded cities (with all those liberals and minorities).” This is a population that is adamantly small government, but…their precious faux rural lifestyle is worthy of subsidy. Don’t call it “welfare” of course.
* The New York Times, major networks, etc. love to go on “safaris” to speak with Cletus and Rufus down at the corner feed store. We must compromise and give way to Cletus and Rufus, but they need never change.
Holms: But it is my RIGHT to raise llamas. And the landscaper got me a good deal on cacti (which were poached from the County park up the road). And the sunsets are so pretty up here. and my huge backyard pool is wonderful on those hot Arizona nights.
Have to say that “urban” Phoenix metro is so BLEAK I can understand the desire to escape it. (Assuming they are long term ARIZONA RESIDENTS)
One of my daughters lives in Tracy, California. She took us once to the house of a friend who lived in a rural development about 15 km from Tracy (probably Deep Gulch). It was very attractive (much more so than Tracy) but I was told that it could never expand because there wasn’t enough water, and no way of bringing more as it’s on the wrong side of I-580: no more houses would be allowed to be built. Maybe they take zoning regulations more seriously in California than they apparently do in Arizona.
Hooboy, Paradise CA needs no introduction, at least not in my case – I can’t even hear the word any more without seeing cars engulfed in flames as people try to flee.
Ophelia: Rebuilding is proceeding apace. Not as rapidly as in wealthier communities, but many of the residents stubbornly note they will rebuild.
One other favorite story; A resident of the neighborhood in. Santa Rosa (Coffee Park, which is almost completely rebuilt now-I cycled through it this week!) was burned out of his house and neighborhood. Logically, he chose to relocate to an obviously more fire prone area (Paradise) and he was burned out a second time. Tragic, but one does have to ask about common sense???
Athel: I have mentioned this before, but in my county (Solano County) the policy is “what is urban shall be municipal”. In other words, if you want municipal water, you need to annex. Even if you dislike the evil Big Gubmint of the City of Vacaville or Benicia infringing on your free-dumb… Which means we don’t have as much faux rural exurban development like you see in Sonoma. County.
There have been a few exceptions, some historical. And one collection of estates did establish its own independent water district because the wells were running dry (the neighborhood also partly burned a couple of years ago, but hey, there are consequences to living in a tinder dry foothill oak savannah?)