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Tucson is one of the largest U.S. cities pumping drinking water from groundwater, and it’s doing so at unsustainable rates. A 1999 report from the Water Resources Research Center at the University of Arizona revealed that the surface water replenishing the aquifer is “not sufficient to ensure a sustainable supply of groundwater in the face of current demand.” According to Robert Glennon, an expert in water law and a professor of law at the university, we’re using at least 122,000 acre-feet (39.8 billion gallons) more each year than is being returned to the aquifer, either artificially or naturally.
The city government paints a rosier picture, claiming the aquifer is being recharged by water Tucson accepts from the Central Arizona Project (CAP). Pumping plants deliver Colorado River water 336 miles to Tucson, where it is left above ground to seep into the aquifer over time. What they’re not trumpeting so loudly is that the recharge rate is far below total replenishment. CAP and similar projects have decimated the Colorado. It no longer reaches the Sea of Cortez, into which it flowed for thousands of years, and its delta, which Aldo Leopold once called America’s greatest oasis, is now a wasteland.
In addition, state law allows anyone to drill their own well, as some wealthy Tucson residents have done to bypass higher water costs meant to encourage conservation. While the average family of four uses 15,000 gallons annually, Glennon estimates that some families with private wells pump 125,000 gallons, extravagantly supporting pools and lawns and other vegetation.
I’ve lived near both the Ohio River and Lake Michigan, and took each of them for granted, as do most people living there. Here in the desert, as I was reminded by my ephemeral backyard creek, we have no mighty rivers or lakes, only sparse rainfall for which we are not nearly grateful enough. Since our disappearing water won’t vanish tomorrow, we will probably continue our present wasteful ways until this life-sustaining resource beneath us becomes too hard to reach and too expensive for most. Decades from now, when a heavy rain once again sends a small flood through the backyard wash, whoever lives here may perhaps find that muddy stream precious for much more than mere sensory delight.
The city government paints a rosier picture, claiming the aquifer is being recharged by water Tucson accepts from the Central Arizona Project (CAP). Pumping plants deliver Colorado River water 336 miles to Tucson, where it is left above ground to seep into the aquifer over time. What they’re not trumpeting so loudly is that the recharge rate is far below total replenishment. CAP and similar projects have decimated the Colorado. It no longer reaches the Sea of Cortez, into which it flowed for thousands of years, and its delta, which Aldo Leopold once called America’s greatest oasis, is now a wasteland.
In addition, state law allows anyone to drill their own well, as some wealthy Tucson residents have done to bypass higher water costs meant to encourage conservation. While the average family of four uses 15,000 gallons annually, Glennon estimates that some families with private wells pump 125,000 gallons, extravagantly supporting pools and lawns and other vegetation.
I’ve lived near both the Ohio River and Lake Michigan, and took each of them for granted, as do most people living there. Here in the desert, as I was reminded by my ephemeral backyard creek, we have no mighty rivers or lakes, only sparse rainfall for which we are not nearly grateful enough. Since our disappearing water won’t vanish tomorrow, we will probably continue our present wasteful ways until this life-sustaining resource beneath us becomes too hard to reach and too expensive for most. Decades from now, when a heavy rain once again sends a small flood through the backyard wash, whoever lives here may perhaps find that muddy stream precious for much more than mere sensory delight.
