INSIDE TUCSON BUSINESS: Mon., July 24, 2006
Researchers predict enough water for Tucson
Tucson has enough water to meet its needs, now and into the distant future, but only if everyone learns to work together toward a common goal.
That was the conclusion of the Water Resources Availability report, presented on July 17 by the UA Water Resources Center. Sponsored by the Southern Leadership Council, Tucson Association of Realtors, Southern Arizona Home Builders Association, Metropolitan Tucson and Marana chambers of commerce, and the Tucson Regional Water Council, the report looked at water supply and demand, now and for the next 25 years, and made predictions about whether they will continue to match.
“This report is recognition of the region's need to look at its water resources,” said Sharon Megdal, director of the research center and the report's principal author. Since 1980, when Arizona adopted the Groundwater Management Act, she said the Tucson area has been taking its consumption seriously.
There's a huge and growing replenishment obligation. That means there's a need for additional water supplies,” she said. “Tucson Water has acknowledged that additional water supply will be required after 2050,” but the need will come a lot sooner in a lot of specific areas without a regional plan, Megdal noted.
She said, “The bottom line is that we have supplies sufficient to serve the community for some years to come.” What the Tucson area doesn't have is a strategy for getting the water from where it's available to where it will be needed.
That leads to the question, “can water acquisition be done in a regional way?”
Full story: http://azbiz.com/articles/2006/07/24/news/news02.txt