So this is what it looks like when you build ever more new houses in a desert and the water dries up.
As the Southwest enters its second decade of megadrought, and the Colorado River sinks to alarmingly low levels, Rio Verde, a largely upscale community that real-estate agents bill as North Scottsdale, though it is a thirty-mile drive from Scottsdale proper, is finding itself on the front lines of the water wars. Some homeowners’ wells are drying up, while others who get water delivered have recently been told that their source will be cut off on January 1st.
Because it’s a desert. Did anyone mention that it’s a desert before you bought new houses there? Did you look out the window at all?
The Southwest’s water issues are at a point of crisis. “What has been a slow-motion train wreck for twenty years is accelerating, and the moment of reckoning is near,” John Entsminger, the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, told Congress earlier this year. Arizona is one of seven states that, along with parts of Mexico, draw water from the Colorado River, which accounts for about a third of the state’s supply. (In the nineteen-seventies, Arizona built an extensive aqueduct system to channel river water to the central and southern regions of the state, in part to allay fears that it was overtaxing its finite supply of groundwater.) But the agreement divvying up the Colorado’s water was made at a time when flows were higher than they are now. In recent years, states that rely on that supply have had to contend with shortages, and experts predict that the situation is only going to get worse.
Probably because there are more and more people there, and none of them can survive without water. Also, it’s getting hotter.
Most Foothills residents draw their water from wells, but several hundred homes sit on land without reliable access to water, so the inhabitants rely on cisterns, which they fill with a delivery from a water truck every month or so.
Ahhh the water is trucked in. That sounds like an excellent plan. Not at all grotesque.
In 2018, Phoenix, concerned about its own supply, stopped selling water to haulers who serviced New River, an unincorporated community north of the city. Nabity grew worried that Scottsdale might make a similar decision and cut off supply to Rio Verde Foothills. If that happened, the water haulers could look for other sources, but trucking water in from farther away would cost significantly more. And what if other communities also stopped wanting to sell their scarce water to outsiders? Nabity, a real-estate agent, worried that water insecurity could prevent her from selling her home someday. But, when she and others began raising the issue, some of her neighbors accused her of fearmongering. Scottsdale promised to be a good neighbor, they insisted. The Foothills weren’t going to get cut off.
Because the water supply is infinite, even in the desert. Really.
Then, last August, the Department of the Interior issued its first-ever formal water-shortage declaration for the Colorado River. A few months later, Scottsdale became the first city in Arizona to announce that it had entered Stage One of its drought-management plan. (Several other cities have since followed suit.) The city asked Scottsdale residents to decrease water consumption by five per cent. It also informed the water haulers that, starting in 2023, they could no longer buy Scottsdale water to deliver outside city limits—including to the Rio Verde Foothills.
Oops.
“Where does new water come from in the Southwest? That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” Loquvam said. “All the low-hanging fruit has been picked, water-wise. There is a second tier of water resources—it exists. But they are significantly more expensive than the existing water supply. Water prices that seem expensive right now will probably seem reasonable in ten years. There’s going to be a lot of outrage.”
Pssst. It has to do with living in a desert.
epcor has been eying one of those second-tier options: groundwater from the Harquahala Valley basin, west of Phoenix. Arizona law mandates that, while a political subdivision such as a dwid can purchase groundwater from the basin, private companies such as epcor cannot. In recent years, though, the state has expanded private companies’ ability to buy water. In 2020, the Arizona Department of Water Resources endorsed a plan that would allow an investment company’s purchase of rural farmland in order to sell water access to developers in a Phoenix suburb.
Yes! Brilliant idea! Convert farmland to a water source for suburban development in a desert! What could possibly go wrong? Besides totally using up every last drop of water?
After all the discussions I’d had with Foothills residents about water scarcity, it was disconcerting to drive down the community’s mostly unpaved roads and see dozens of new houses under construction. Despite the ruptures within the community, the one thing that everyone seemed to agree on was that there was way too much development in the Rio Verde Foothills. Last year, Maricopa County added more residents than any other county in the country.
God people are stupid.
Many of the new homes will rely on hauled water—if it’s available. Arizona has long been aware of its finite water supply; a 1980 law requires developers to secure a hundred years’ worth of water for their projects. But the Foothills is plagued by what are known as wildcat builders. Because the hundred-year law applies only to subdivisions of more than five houses, wildcat builders often split parcels into five or fewer lots.
Great! “Here’s your new house. By the way there’s no water. Bye-eeeeeeeeeeeee.”
Many of the new houses in the Foothills were built by Morgan Taylor Homes, one of the biggest developers in Maricopa County. Instead of sprawling ranches, they are mostly two- and three-bedroom houses. Their prices, however, are not particularly modest: one eighteen-hundred-square-foot house near Riddle’s was listed at a little less than six hundred thousand dollars. “Who’s gonna spend five hundred ninety-five thousand dollars for a house with no water?” Riddle asked incredulously.
For a house in the Arizona desert with no water! By the way note the meaning of the name “Arizona.” They weren’t joking.*
As the January 1st deadline approaches, many Foothills residents still don’t know where their water will come from. The uncertainty and drama that keeps Nabity up at night doesn’t seem to be dissuading newcomers, though. “I just sold my daughter’s house, next door,” she said, shaking her head. “We got two great offers in, and neither of them cared about the water situation. They believe that the county is not going to let five hundred homes next to one of the wealthiest cities go without water.”
Therefore the county will perform an act of magic, and the Colorado river will fill all the way up in 3.5 hours.
*Wrong. See Skeletor’s correction. Google confirms.
