 | | Severe water scarcity now invites an urgent question for Arizona. Photo © J. Carl Ganter/ Circle of Blue |
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| At Peak of Its Wealth and Influence, Arizona's Desert Civilization Confronts A A Reckoning Over Water
Arizona commanded the contemporary 20th century rules of the development game, and reached the pinnacle of its lifestyle appeal and economic influence in the first decades of the 21st.
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? That question is more urgent and more relevant than ever. Climatologists project the worst is yet to come and the river could lose 3 million more acre-feet from its flow by mid-century, or another 20 to 30 percent. If that occurs, water supplies for Phoenix and Tucson would be substantially cut.
A dress rehearsal for contending with serious water shortage is in process for 1 million residents who don’t live in Arizona’s two big metro regions. During a month of frontline reporting in Arizona, Circle of Blue encountered unmistakable signals of extreme water stress. Drought and extreme heat are emptying rivers and reservoirs, fallowing tens of thousands of acres of farmland, forcing thousands of homeowners to secure water from trucks and not their dead wells, and pushing Arizona ever closer to the precipice of peril.
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What’s Up With Water — March 15, 2022
For the news you need to start the week, tune into “What’s Up With Water” fresh on Monday’s on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, and SoundCloud. Featured coverage from this week's episode of What's Up With Water looks at: - In Australia, the eastern states of Queensland and New South Wales continue to reel from record-breaking floods. Storms at the end of February and beginning of March unleashed waves of water in the area.
- Flood disasters are also a concern in New York City, where a project to protect a heavily populated section of Manhattan reached a milestone recently. At the end of February, workers installed the first of 18 flood gates that will protect 110,000 residents and critical infrastructure from storm surge and rising seas.
- In Utah, lawmakers ended the 2022 legislative General Session by passing an array of water conservation bills. Their action was compelled by a deep drought in the drying Southwest that is damaging the state’s most treasured natural assets.
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 | | Residents of Qayarrah, in northern Iraq, must contend with oil leaks from sabotaged oil wells and refineries. Photo courtesy of UNEP |
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In 2017, the extent of the damage in northern Iraq, where fighting against Islamic State was most intense, was just beginning to be appraised. A preliminary assessment by the United Nations Environment Program revealed a swath of ecological devastation around Mosul, which the Iraqi Army retook from Islamic State in early July.
Through field surveys and interviews with Iraqi government officials, UN agency staff, local academics, and oil company employees, UNEP found a region whose refineries, power stations, pharmaceutical manufacturing complex, canals, dams, and mines have been bombed, sabotaged, or punctured, resulting in a toxic flow onto lands and waters.
UNEP listed a half dozen instances in which water infrastructure was reportedly the target of attack or used as a weapon.
The use of such tactics is not limited to Iraq. Peter Gleick is president emeritus of the Pacific Institute, which oversees the Water Conflict Chronology, a catalogue of conflicts over water or incidents in which water systems were targets of war. He told Circle of Blue that the database continues to grow.
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