2023.01.12
View this email in your browser
Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here.

Water scarcity is intensifying the challenge in Arizona and four other fast-growing desert Southwest states of building mixed use residential projects, like this one south of Phoenix. Photo © Keith Schneider / Circle of Blue

20 Years of Severe Drought Impede Huge Developments in Southwest

Uncertain path forward for largest development ever proposed in Arizona.

BUCKEYE, AZ. — The White Tank Mountains were the backdrop in October when senior executives of the Howard Hughes Corporation broke ground for Teravalis, the largest planned community ever proposed in Arizona. Hughes’ plan is to turn 37,000 acres of Sonoran Desert west of Phoenix, nearly 60 square miles, into 100,000 homes and 55 million square feet of commercial space where 300,000 people will live and 450,000 will work.

Modeled after Irvine Ranch in California, the largest planned community in the United States, Teravalis is seen by local and state elected leaders as a crowning achievement in a booming real estate market. Jay Cross, the company’s president, assured gathered guests that Teravalis “will provide an exceptional quality of life and opportunities for growth.”

But Teravalis also expresses the intensifying challenge in Arizona and four other fast-growing desert Southwest states to build huge mixed use residential projects in an era of water scarcity. Persistent dry conditions are driving up the cost of water and prompting more resistance from government and citizens to new development. Those trends, in turn, also are prompting innovations in community design and installation of expensive infrastructure to use less fresh water and recycle more wastewater.

Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue

What’s Up With Water – January 10, 2023

Tune into What's Up With Water for your need to know news of the world's water on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and SoundCloud.

Featured coverage from this week's episode of What's Up With Water looks at:

In the United States, the holiday season was marked by winter storms that showed how vulnerable water systems are to extreme weather. Cold winters are unusual in the American South, but temperatures dipped below freezing in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. This cold plunge, especially in the Deep South, caused pipes to freeze, burst, and leak.
California has also been battered by winter storms. Plumes of intense rain and snow hit the state last week, raising concerns about flooding and landslides in areas that are recovering from wildfires. California has had three consecutive dry years, so the moisture is needed to replenish reservoirs. But even with the storms, the state has a long-term water supply problem, shown in a new study based on satellite data.
Water shortages, weather disasters, and climate instability are uprooting people from their homes. For the first time, U.S. officials have an idea about how many people are being displaced. New data from the Census Bureau indicates that some 3 million people in the country were displaced by weather disasters in the last year. According to the Associate Press, about half of the affected people left home due to hurricanes.

From the Archives:

A three-part investigative series

At Peak of Its Wealth and Influence, Arizona’s Desert Civilization Confronts A Reckoning Over Water

State’s powerful will to grow is challenged by extreme heat, deep drought, and serious water-related stress.

Arizona’s population, 7.1 million, has increased by an average of 1 million people a decade since the 1950s, when the five C’s ruled the state: cattle, copper, cotton, citrus, and climate. Even as the first four have declined in relative importance, the appeal of warmth and sunshine has not diminished. In fact, it’s boom times. Phoenix, with 1.7 million residents, is now the nation’s fifth largest city. To spend time in Arizona is to understand why it’s been one of the fastest growing states for four generations. The state embodies a century of pure American capitalist exuberance.

The question now, as it has been since 1911 when the first big reservoir was completed to supply Phoenix with water, is one of longevity. Can this desert bounty be sustained for another 100 years, or even another 50?

Circle of Blue brings our readers to the front lines of the biggest stories around the most important issue on the planet: The world’s water.

Just as water is central to life, your support is vital to what we do.

Please support our nonprofit journalism today.

Support Circle of Blue

We want to hear from you! Please email thoughts and suggestions to info@circleofblue.org.

This email was sent to newsletter@newslettercollector.com
why did I get this? unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences
Circle of Blue · 1615 Randolph Street · Traverse City, MI 49684-2172 · USA