As Arizona's drought continues, cities and towns are seeing their water supply threatened. In Pine-Strawberry wells are running dry and infrastructure is failing.
60 year old system that "wasn't installed right" , and it leaks 33M gallons a year? Where was the plan to generate tax revenue and repair/upgrade the system 15 years ago?
Something doesn't smell right here - "Out of 38 wells, only 14 work". And I take it some of those are private wells. Even if the city system leaks, the water goes back into the aquifer.
Called get a bunch of Mexicans who know how to build concrete and stream boulder retaining walls, and make some new storage tanks. Oh no, get a big tech plan and complain to the state and Fed for a kabillion dollars. They were building them as retaining walls on the Baja state highway in the 90's when I was down there sport fishing. Just expert artisans for drainage control.
I would bet any leader that dared to be responsible and proposed to collect taxes for this was quickly voted out because of "you're raising my taxes!!! You're infringing on my freedom!!" types of people that live out in these towns. Everyone tauts "low taxes!!" in these places right up until the bill comes due. . .
@@teejaybee8222 Water districts don't have taxes, they have water rates. Infrastructure cost to population to pay it is always important. No small town just have $130 million laying around. It has to be done incrementally.
@@iane9041 the video literally calls out that the arid climate is not helping matters. Pine is common in desert climate and this area is geographically classified as "high desert".
I was pretty much warned about this years ago by a friend who is third generation Pine resident. I was considering moving there and he gave me a friendly heads up that this is where it was heading. I can't thank him enough for that advice.
David, I had a mirror experience. I was a real estate closing signature away from moving to Henderson, Nevada back in 2008/2009. During my research of the area, several Vegas locals voiced their concerns regarding the declining water levels at Lake Mead. During approximately 5-6 trips to Las Vegas over 1 1/2 years, I would visit Boulder City to monitor the water levels. They were clearly declining & in 2009, Clark County started pushing Desert Landscapng to new & present homes. At the time real estate prices were pennies on the dollar compared to today and closing were often rescheduled due to the volume. My initial closing was rescheduled 3 times and finally rescheduled several days after the contract expired. In the end, I walked out of the closing without buying because the seller backed out on several agreements, citing the agreements were no longer valid due to the contract expiration date. At the time, I was severely ticked off but, now……..I realize it was a blessing in disguise. I presently remain in the Midwest (1.5 miles from Lake Michigan), have all the fresh water imaginable and I’m 2-3 years to paying off my present home.
For starters, Arizona is ridiculously overdeveloped. You've got lots of towns and communities in what is/used to be desert. Seen any aerial shots of the Phoenix metropolis? Good grief--absurd sprawl. The water conditions will only get worse....
We would be more than happy to send all of the California & other move ins back to where they came from. I';d love Mesa to be the small town I grew up in again.
I agree and no slow down of the building. It certainly isn't condusive to what the desert is suppose to be. Way too much building going on without care or concern for the implications to the environment.
Denial is Arizona's official state pastime. Ground water is dropping thru out the state but nobody worries about till the water doesn't come out of the tap.
And the indigenous people are laughing. White people came and stole their lands and murdered them. Now the pale face will all die, the bison will return, the ghost dancers will return. And you will feel what these people you called savages suffered at your grand father's hands. Time to repent, your God will not save you, cast out your corrupt politicions and police and beg the indigenous chief's forgiveness.
I feel sorry for the individuals but their plight was entirely predictable. You can't build a water intensive society in a desert. When the aquifers are pumped dry there is no quick and easy fix.
Right. I don't think this is a "new" problem. Just neglected problem or without foresight or not believing in what experts were telling them or all the above.
Due to water issues, people should be moving out Arizona and Nevada and not thinking about building new houses there. Even Las Vegas is running out of water. Just leave the desert alone.
@@rcbrascan If people would use the water for personal use it would be ok. But all those golf resorts, cattle farms or giant gardens/pools in the desert is ridiculous..
50 years ago they talked about the River and wells couldn't sustain 100 million more illegals and anchor babies across the southwestern states. And here it is.
People don't believe "science" until the turn the knob and nothing happens. They actually think it's all overstated or just "crazy environmentalist" spreading panic. It really is amazing.
@@treasurethetime2463 Which "science" are you referring to? The 1970's "science" that warned the Earth would suffer an ice age within 30 years? Or the 1980's "science" the world as we know it would end due to global warming? Or the proven facts: the Earth is nearly the coldest it has been in 3000 years and the current rate of temperature increase is only half of the rate from 500-1000 AD.
I remember passing through the Prescot area in the early 80's. Beautiful country...While looking around we noticed some unbelievably inexpensive properties for sale. I remember one ranch that had several buildings and sizable acreage that was listed in the $60's !When we asked some locals about this they all said the same thing, "water".
@@phoenix3.057 are you kidding? Prescott is extremely desired and cost has risen multiple times over. A normal working person can’t even get a home there anymore. Bunch of million dollar homes. It’s not like the valley where you can just build more. That area is limited.
Good example of mismanagement you can’t blame it all on the drought when you loose 33 million gallons of water a year due to an old infrastructure that you failed to upgrade and maintain over the 60 years.
@@LL-cz5ql sorta, some of it will get locked in rock for decades, some of it will evaporate, some of it will be absorbed by local flora. It becomes harder to access.
Who owns the "infrastructure"? The most significant fires in Northern California were caused by failing electricity infrastructure owned by corporate shareholders (the Vanguard Group being the largest shareholder and BlackRock being the 6th largest shareholder). The state of California has done nothing to address the situation - it has not taken back control of Pacific Gas and Electric or forced the current corporate owners to maintain its equipment.
Even here in Canada, in an area drowning in lakes, developers built million dollar homes on a mountain with no water available. Everyone thinks artesian wells are sure fire. They are not. Developers must be the greediest species going...
I do so agree. Not only water resources, but here in Texas, they destroy prairies that can never be replaced with metastisizing developments of ugly, zero-lot line homes. What a horror the modern world is.
Developers have totally destroyed lives, communities, entire cities, and don’t care because they got their money. And they pay off politicians. Politicians are also evil because they take this corrupt money and keep allowing these people to do this
Canada needs to get started building a really long wall on its southern border. You're going to need it in 20 years, when millions of American climate refugees come north in search of water.
and they all want to live in single family homes, spread out across huge swaths of land that all has to be connected by asphalt roadways and infrastructure (power, utilities).
agree, lived there for years and as far back as 2000 we were having well problems in Rimrock AZ. Nothing has been solved since then apparently. I do feel bad for all of them but the handwriting was on the wall for a long time. No one paid attention
@@circusboy90210 germane? Did u mean pertain? Lol it has to do with water because the hookups require the city to expand pipe from the building into the well, now if you were setting up water to an apartment complex you only have connect once to supply dozens of families to water... however of you are tapping the wells just for ONE single family home you're going to have to do that for each house that isn't close enough to the next. In the video they said the wells were 750 feet down. So for each house you're going to have 750 feet of infrastructure, each prone to leaks... where as if you had concentrated your dwellings you have to build much less infrastructure and it would be even easier to repurpose and recycle the waste water. I mean I don't know why I had to explain this to you, if you think about these things and their consequences for two seconds....
A friend of mine who frequently vacationed in Arizona told me of this impending water shortage 30 years ago. People can remain so ignorant of the facts even when they are surrounded by them. There is no "solution" to this crises. Too many people and farms have been over pumping the deserts water table for the last 100 years. If they think they can have the government pipe Great Lakes water to Arizona so they can continue to fill their swimming pools and irrigate desert land into farms, they have a rude awakening coming to them. No great lake state or Canada will allow the lakes to be tapped. Period. Over population and climate change is making this situation permanent.
Let them pump water from the ocean and use all that solar green energy to desalinate it lol Then build a few more towns to deplete that too ! Like a democrat government with tax's keep taking till there is nothing left to take !
I live in Phoenix and people filling their swimming pool isn’t really a huge problem but what I noticed is a large amount of water wasted or used carelessly, tons of golf courses, leaky irrigation and watering grass during the day… that’s just the start!
This is like China building 40 million more homes than needed, with no demand foreseeable >20 years from now...for the already-supplied units...and: Now they say "We have no money left for food/medical/transport for the people who DO have a house. Where did all our money go, now that DEBTS of Evergrande/etc and DEBTS of the govt are coming due? Why we have no MONEY for things OTHER THAN housing??"
Meanwhile, Outside Phoenix they are building for another million people. Still keeping those golfing greens green... swim pools fresh, even building more golf courses.
Your NOT joking. 2 weeks ago, I went out to the dump in Mesa. Traveling out towards Warner Rd off of Ellisworth. MY GOSH. I never go out that way & was floored of all the tiny homes, apartments & MASSIVE buildings. Have no clue what businesses are going in with no water, our farms have sold out. Az. is a mess.
Tens of millions of people move to an arid desert environment and want to live a modern, water-intensive first-world life style. What could possibly go wrong.
All the fancy subdivisions in central AZ, and plenty of not so fancy homes there, irrigate their ornamental landscaping. I was so surprised by that while I lived there. Everybody cried about water, then pissed it away.
We've been in a severe drought for 20 years, but yeah, let's keep having a massive influx of people to our state and oh yeah no problem businesses can take 70% of the water meant for civilians.
Plus people brag about the low taxes maybe that's why they don't have enough money to take care of their problems without begging for others to pay for it. So why should the rest of the country have to pay for their problems
Not just taking the water, but putting it in bottles and shipping it elsewhere, because the water is subsidized. Make water cost what it actually costs, and you'll see what happens.
One has to ask if it is responsible for the state or federal government to spend $130 million to replace infrastructure for such a small town that has a dubious tax base that could never support it's own infrastructure in the long run. It is unsustainable and is just kicking the can down the road. Frankly, I would put money down that many in this community asking for money are the same that claim "taxation is theft" and it's all the urban cities (that has a solvent tax base, I might add) that are the "takers". It may sound cynical, but if you want to have a "dream home" in the wilderness, have water, and expect the government to protect it from fire, maintain roads, pipes, policing, etc., you're going to have to pay for it. . .
The answer is "No, the government should not use my tax dollars to subsidize their cost to live there." Each home owner needs to ante up $50,000 to pay for a water system; or move somewhere cheaper.
I watched a story on this I think on 60 min about how the state doesn’t put water restrictions on companies that use a ton of water, leaving residents with dry wells, and insanely high water prices. The story was from a couple years ago.
You can blame companies like nestle. They have water contracts signed in the 1900's with the state and they use that contract to fill all those bottled water they sell.
@@burtmcgurt3584 By unifying and mobilizing, With present corrupt systems the only people that will help you is yourselves. Remember this is a world problem.
@@burtmcgurt3584 forward thinking, prevention, being more proactive to problems instead of "let's fix it" reactive thinking. But then again you people want less restriction, less taxes, less regulations and Freedom, right? Now they want a government handout to fix problems that increased taxes would have paid for.
I live in Phoenix, AZ. My HOA dictates that I have at least 2 trees and 7 bushes on my front-yard so I cannot live without an irrigation system when I could have had a maintenance and watering free desert landscape easily. I walk around and see streets and city parks with running water all the time because of faulty irrigation. There is a swimming pool in every other house. Almost every house has an RO water system that drains at least 2 gallons of water for every gallon of drinking water produced. My HOA has a lake and that is very common. There is a golf course within minutes away from anywhere. I just heard in the news that because of the water shortage problem, they are going to limit water to the farms. I have problems wrapping my head around that.
You can absolutely have an irrigationless front yard in Phoenix. You plant native trees and shrubs and they will grow just fine. We did it for years with our palo verde trees and acacia plants
never live under the auspices of an HOA, thet're usually transplants and bring their expectations to an area and expect their new neighbors to abide to their way of thinking.
The native bands on Vancouver island got together with an East Indian group and are selling bottled water as far away as Japan. I'm sure they would sell you guys some as well. Can you afford 75$ a bottle ?
I went to massage therapy school in Scottsdale back in the early 2000’s. When graduation was looming, all of my school friends were incredulous about my decision to move back to Missouri. They asked me why I couldn’t see that living out in the Valley of the Sun would be much better than living in Missouri as a massage therapist? My response? “This is a desert. This is a desert and people are required to have turf front lawns by aggressive HOAs all over the area. Turf. This is a high water usage plant. And tell me again how many golf courses are out here? In the desert? And all of the trees have to be staked out so they won’t fall over when the torrential rains come, as they do in a desert? And the allergy season is never ending? Oh, and did I mention this is the desert and people are required by law to pour fresh water out on their property for fear of losing their homes to their HOA? Honestly, I don’t get why anyone thinks it is a good idea to live here.” Yes, it was a rant. Not the only time I pointed out to them that Arizona is mostly desert, especially when driving between Flagstaff and Mexico or from the mountains east of San Diego all the way to El Paso and beyond…this conversation was had just after 9-11 when everyone was told to keep their cars filled with gas in case an evacuation was necessary and one of my friends noticed that I only had a quarter tank when we were going to lunch one day. After being questioned, I said, “where are you going to evacuate to? Sedona? Tucson? California?…how big is your gas tank? I count two interstates running through Phoenix, and everyone is supposed to evacuate on these? Nope. If we have to evacuate, I will take my chances at my apartment, where there is a swimming pool full of water, rather than being stranded in the middle of a parking lot in the middle of the desert only to die of heat stroke, thirst, or both.”
It’s unfortunate that they have known for decades of the leaking pipes and did nothing about it. A wise man once said: Failure to plan is a plan to fail. Hopefully, for the residents sake, they figure out the mess they caused.
I was tempted to join the huge migration to Arizona that's been going on and then came to my senses when I realized they are a water disaster waiting to happen.
My parents retired in Prescott and I planned on following their lead only a little further north...Williams/Flagstaff. Went so far as visiting a realtor who told us the properties we could afford had no water, wells had to be drilled several thousand feet and the only viable way to get water was to truck it in. That scared us off and we elected to stay put.
It's a shame, and I take no pleasure in the suffering of others, but no one can reasonably say that they didn't see this coming. The region can only sustain so many people, and that point was passed some time ago. It's time for some hard choices to be made.
Tbh, it’s a typical mentality I just see in people in general. Use, use, use until nothing’s left and no foresight and conservation efforts until it’s too late. This is why I always say more people will equate to more problems.
@Summer Rose without wanting to be rude, looking at USA from the outside, the waste is ASTOUNDING. The constant use of cars and air conditioning for example, and just the way most people seem to have no idea how demanding their lives are in terms of energy and products
I have friends that live in southern Arizona and they don't have a well. They built a 70' x 70' corrugated roof 3' off the ground on the high side of their property. Down the hill from that they have 4 15000 gal tanks. They have 2 4" pipes running from the roof to the tanks and they get enough water from the monsoons every year to last them the rest of the year.
MY family well in Cochise was useless by the 80's, pretty crappy alkalinity before that. Talk was you could maybe drill below a thousand feet and hit water, and maybe not. That area wasn't even heavily farmed, mostly ranched for cattle. It's not like AZ didn't see this coming. I live in Louisiana now and can refill my 50-gallon garden rain barrel nearly every week of the year. If I had more I could fill them too. And that's just off half the roof of my rather small 2 bedroom house.
Too many people and not enough water. They are living on hope and empty promises, not to mention empty water tanks and dry wells. Years of poor water management, and a drought, have caught up with them.
Every time I visit out west I'm astounded by the lack of water conservation. Golf courses, parks and yards that rely on irrigation. I see farms that are just now investing in drip irrigation and the lack of infrastructure investment because they want to keep taxes down. Eventually this all catches up. The only reason that many of these places exist is because of the invention of indoor air conditioning.
Republicans are clueless. They destroy the country, the planet, they invade the capitol and try to destroy our constitution, women’s rights, voting rights, etc… and then they whine.
@@anarchist999999 Yes. Not even any borders anymore. Nobody interested in building things like desalination plants in California and running pipelines to reduce overpumping of groundwater in CA, NV, AZ. Magical belief that what worked last year will work this year.
80 miles away in Prescott/Prescott Valley, they are building non-stop, bringing in about a 100,000 new residents while those of us that have lived here are questioning "Where is the water to support this increase in population"?
@@JK-ff6zc Very, very expensive water. So expensive, the Saudis last year started charging citizens for their water. Had always been free before. Very power intensive. Saudis in northwestern part are now building a passive desalination system with evaporation in covered glass tanks. Should be done this year. From what I see, the pines aren't dead, so there is winter water there. It is just allowed to run off.
@@donaldkasper8346 No drinking water is more expensive. And the water table has been dropping so trees are stressed even in winter and even after a good monsoon season. I lived in Arabia and the water desalination was run at the time by a partnership with Aramco. Getting workers to work in Arabia is always the problem there. Saudis provide free housing, transportation, health care, other perks, and the turnover rate is high. That makes it expensive. A good engineer could make the process cheaper in the US in other ways. The ppm of Flagstaff water was about 60 twenty years ago. Now it is about 160. No longer makes a good cup of tea without filtration. It is a matter of time. A pipeline from southeastern states with flooding from rains is another option. Or we can wait for the crisis. The windmill farm construction will take a lot of water just for all the concrete required.
The west does have a history of settlements and towns going bust because of a lack of water. People move in and build during wet periods but when the dry periods come it just becomes harder and harder. A like of ghost towns in the west. That's always been the gamble.
I moved out of so-cal for similar reasons. There are many places you are all BUT allowed to set a well. They have to keep going more an more north to scure water down to the cities. It's just insane so many want to move here still.
We've had a least four decades of warning. As a geography grad student in 1980 (42 years ago), we (including our professors) were aware and trying to get western legislatures to take it seriously, but _they always listen to developers and other lobbyists over scientists._ 🤬
So weird! Scarcity of water in the desert.... Maybe we should try cutting down the remaining old growth forests and build more shopping malls, unaffordable single family homes on very small lots with nice landscaping, more banks and certainly more car dealerships and big box stores with massive flat roofs that would be perfect for solar panels and green roofs, but don't do that on them, just paint them white to reflect as much of the sun's energy as possible. That will probably fix it.
@@xsleep1 To have large pine forest requires cooler conditions and at least 25 inches of annual rainfall. This is an overdraft problem. Now for me, our family has two lots on the largest recharge aquifer in the whole Antelope Valley, Big Rock Creek. We bought that for a reason. Called planning, though we don't live there. We get two requests a year to buy the lots on the cheap, presumably laundered through a local real estate company for a water district as we have water rights. If in the face of that, Pine don't have enough water, they need a community water district with authority to install contour rock walls and sand dams on all the washes to build up the water table. This is very low tech effective water table restoration.
There are remnants of civilizations and communities that had to leave for this type of reason throughout the southwest. Living in the desert will always be a temporary thing.
Modern humans waste too much water. We have a 100-gallon tank, and it lasts our family of five at least two weeks. The average household goes through 10,000 gallons of water per week. You can live in the desert, if you are not wasteful.
Living in the desert has never been a ‘temporary thing’. Civilizations have been living in the deserts since we were created…. Since we know what is the real issue is (i.e. losing water) then we need to find and implement a solution. There are many solutions but our government doesn’t want to fix it because it will cost them money not MAKE them money. That’s the REAL issue. Edit: And if china can turn their deserts into a green forests then what’s stopping us?
@@CybrBunny china gets lots of water, shouldn't use China as an example. Try watching NTD news about China. Too many people in the USA, and they keep streaming in.
@Moon Shine You're probably correct. But in general, water is most plentiful in a canyon at the base of a significant watershed, in every similar place across the Great Southwest.
I live in Colorado and I’m watching the growth explode here there’s not going to be enough water to go around here either ,and people just keep moving here and there’s no one stopping the growth, Water is not the only problem people are getting out priced that grew up here that can’t afford homes here either
Colorado is going to be in big trouble with all the new developments in the mountains...all those fires in California ain't NOTHING compared to what Colorado has in store for it. All that unchecked growth needs to be ✔️✔️✔️✔️
The water tables in the west will take hundreds of years of above normal annual rainfall for them to return to normal. Doesn’t sound to promising especially with the population growing every year. 😕
It shouldn't be wow let's see how we can all come together because that just implies the same behaviour as previously Face the reality that this part of the country needs to adapt to a changing environment and plan accordingly
There is no changing climate. The water supply is limited and it was drawn down faster than replenished. In Ethiopia and other dry areas of East Africa and Madagascar, they use sand dams to retain water instead of it just running off. It has been tried in the dry wadis of Western Saudi Arabia, an extremely dry area with rare huge rain events. In the Western US, no such concept exists. The whole idea started with a Zimbabwe farmer to secure water in the soil in dry years. Even he could figure it out, but the West depends on big tech and big money, not simple tech, and very little money. It is like cultural brain lock.
@@gregh7457 you’re fine, these people don’t know what they are talking about. AZ uses less water now than it did 50 years ago, despite millions more people living here. Municipal use is 20% of the state’s total use. The biggest user is agriculture at 70%. Nobody made a peep about agriculture exports for the 20+ years of dropping water levels.
I feel awful for these folks, but how is this news? We’ve known this was coming for decades! People were laughing at environmentalists and I still have friends here in New Mexico who think this drought is just temporary.
Phoenix installed the CAP canals decades ago but after you moved. It has plenty of water... for the time being. They also instituted CAGRD to pump excess into the aquifer for future use. That being said, the amount of people there is now insane and definitely not sustainable even though there is water available for the time being.
might be outdated but I read an article a few years ago about how much water we send to California. Most of the contacts are 60 years old so they get our water cheap as hell. Hope they change this if they haven’t already
@@pavld335 The Land of Oz........all these people have no common sense, I feel no sympathy for the stupid......stupid is why we have this pathetic President!!
I live in Apache County Arizona and water is very important. We have enough for the size of the population as it stands, Apache County has a little more the 72 thousand people and at least half those are natives on their respective reservations. Apache County is the 7th largest County in the whole United States, the water here can only support so many people but people are moving here from California at an alarming rate and they demand all the goodies they had in California, it is a recipe for disaster and its happening unabated. This has to stop immediately. I say no more raw land for sale by unscrupulous real estate companies and big trusts. No more. California you made your own mess now deal with it and let us work out our own situation while we still can!! Stay away!!!!
@Randall bates I have 40 acres in Elk Valley. The last time that I was there was 2012 and it was barren and deserted. Unlike, when I first purchased it.
When you hear that a town is dying because it's losing tens of millions of gallons of water every year to substandard plumbing installation the value of regulating businesses really hits home.
WRONG. The govt reservoirs were mismanaged to "lose" millions of gallons, so the govt would need to better-regulate ITSELF. But the funny thing about water is this isn't really a "loss," it's just a GAIN FOR OTHERS who ARE more responsible in maintaining their water-capture systems, aka WELLS. It just brings the water -- which was only 8' under the grass/soil as of the 1950's -- that much closer to the surface again, so EVERYONE ELSE EXCEPT that mismanaged city doesn't need to drill their wells as DEEP as before.
Water doesn't just disappear. It evaporates and then comes back down. Even water evaporates from the oceans and it doesn't come back down as salt water. The notion that water supplies are finite is ridiculous. Where is all this water going?
@@steven4315 No, the estimate at the meeting was outrageously high. Typical move when asking for government money. A well was drilled 20 miles south of there for under $50,000. The group that drilled it sold/leased it to Payson (highest bidder). Strawberry could do the same, drill a well, but they want someone else to pay for it. The people served by the water district need to pay for it, not the rest of us who don't live there. A special assessment is the proper way to handle this. It is also the fairest way. Strawberry is sitting above the largest aquifer in the nation, they just need to ante up their own money.
California needs to build desalinization. Then AZ could negotiate to take more of the Colorado River's water. There isn't too little water, there's just too much greed/short-sighted planning by California selfish politicians who have more $$ for federal campaign donations (bribes) to make sure they can pay $10 MLN per year to a fed politician who is "Gatekeeper" of Land Mgt bureaucracies, rather than pony up the $100 MLN to build desalinization.
"We need money we don't have to pay back...." In other words we need OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY to bail us out of our foolish decision to build in the middle of a desert!
I know its mind blowing. Same thing with Los Angeles, They built a giant city in a very dry place and then freak-out when their water supply form out of state starts running out. The amount of stupidity involved in this kind of planning has always dumbfounded me.
Ppl have lived in deserts all over the world for millennia. The difference is that the yt people who came to the southwest, particularly greater Phoenix areas, tried to make it look like the Midwest. Installing Lawns, private pools, golf courses. In 40 years they’ve depleted the resources that could’ve sustained communities for centuries. This is the product of gluttony, thoughtlessness and greed.
What's really amazing is that people are trying to GREEN the deserts on top of this. Wasting even more water and destroying the Desert Ecosystem! Humans are stupid.
Ever see one of those archeology shows where at some point the narrator points out that the town, village, or city was just abandoned for seemingly no reason at all after thriving for hundreds of years. Yeah I've got a theory on that.
I’m pretty sure that the mindless unmetered aquifer tapping to grow alfalfa in the desert for export to a certain country has something to do with the aquifer drying out.
125million to help Americans? NO 54Billion to help Ukraine? YES Good job Brandon 👏 Let’s send all our money to other countries as we are in a Recession, supply chain crisis and record high inflation. Makes sense
@@Grammy52 I’m neither red nor blue so If you’re looking for a debate I won’t give you the answers you want. I don’t believe the Rich should get tax cuts either.
There is a simple fix, DON"T LIVE IN A DESERT!! I did live in Phoenix from 77 to 1996 and even back then water was an issue. It will continually get worse. I worked for a pump company and when we went into the desert around Phoenix and west we were told by the farmers that when they put in their wells in the 1950's they could go down 8 ft where in the late 1970's you needed to go down several hundred!!! I can't imagine what it is today, much worse!
the easy solution is water catchment and storage, its fairly easy to retrofit water tanks to your house roof. Just move away from the city and you wont have to worry about acid rain and pollution.
When you move to a desert or hot drought area , you have to think about your water supply! The same goes for Southern California, they converted a desert to a residential area and farmland, but they are running out of water😱 These are still desert and they have no plans for the lack of water😱
@@jinglemyberries866 Everywhere’s overpopulated man. It’s kind of crazy and scary. My hometown has gone from 4,000 to 60,000 in the last 20 years. What used to be a quick trip to H‑E‑B is now an hour round trip. And the cities next to me are the same. 12x the population with the same roads and infrastructure. And idk how ANY of these people are buying houses or apartments. My dad bought his house 20 years ago for a little over 100k. He got it appraised recently for a little over a million. I make 18 an hour working 55 hours a week and rent takes up the majority of my money. The world is burning.
Thanks for the warning. Folks from the Midwest think availability of water is a basic Right. Many of us do not take the time and interest to study this issue while full time employed in the rat race. We moved to central Florida by luck. Arizona was considered but rejected for other reasons. BTW, central Florida does worry about water also. Here we have hurricanes, sink holes, cost of living and water to worry about.
For those who remember, Northern California fought against the massive over population expansion in Southern California that was demanding water supply from the north. Twice California voted down providing water to Southern California. Then Ronald Reagan became Governor and pushed through the California Aquaduct that was formerly known as the Peripheral Canal. Water and water rights have been a real issue that irresponsible profit seeking expansionists have ignored. Northern California was simply asking Southern California to develop managed growth strategies to conserve on the water. Southern California politicians, like Ronald Reagan, didn’t want to spend the $ that way. Now people don’t even know the difference. What a shame.
Didn’t know that valid point. I can see why many considered him the anti-christ. He was a puppet head for Wall Street, the reason the banks keep failing us time and time again.
LOL, blaming Reagan is hilarious. That state has been run by bleeding heart liberals for 50 years but it's Reagan's fault they can't manage their water. LMFAO!
The entire country has major infrastructure issues. Gas lines, electric, water, sewer. Nothing has been kept up for decades now. It's going to get much worse.
Yes it is. What a week ago here in Mesa. US60 at McClintock had a MASSIVE deluge of water. US 60 is closed there. The pipes are "only" 50 yrs old & " we thought they should last to 75 yrs". My tax dollars at work! ONLY a loss of 80 million plus gallons of water lost. Yeah, no worries. But lets keep the golf courses going. I'm at 45 yr resident & my family has been here since the 50's. Even 40 yrs ago Az was nice.
@@ffjsb Hogwash! Where do you get these BS talking points? Feed into you favorite search engine infrastructure bill 2021 breakdown and start getting your self educated about what the bill does. It isn't enough but passing a bigger bill would not have happened.
Climate scientists warned 30-40 years ago that the southwest U.S. was going to experience extreme droughts and here we are. I live in Flagstaff and we're preparing our house now to sell and move to where there's water, it's going to get A LOT worse in the Southwest.
Enough money for a football / track and field, but not a community wide water storage and reuse system ? Try reallocating your sports budgets for water. You probably need engineered wetlands to clean your water ; horizontal , tower wetlands, whatever allows you to keep as much as possible.
I feel bad for them, but common sense must have failed them. Living in a dry place off of well water means your time there was always going to be limited.
Would have been fine if the guy next door never decide a golf course in the desert was a great idea next to the pool and then a water melon farm and a water bottling plant to ship the water away lol
This is beyond coming together and hope. It’s time to pack up and relocate. In time, this will expand to more cities. It’s on my radar to leave the western part of the states. We love to talk about things but doing something. Not so good at that.
Looks like we're going to have to build that wall closer to Wichita KS. If all these people tramp in from the arid Western regions, they'll take away everything we've worked for all our lives.
@@greghess9667 That's what People of Color are for. You sell your home at a loss to someone least able to deal with the environmental consequences, then move to a nice White community far away from arid lands and coastal flooding. Better do this before the insurance companies get tired of paying climate change losses on fire and hurricane damage. If you haven't figured it out already, this is the American plan for dealing with climate change.
Will a similar thing happen in Phoenix/Tuscan metro eventually? How much growth can the area handle? I now live in the Philippines where there is plenty of water but it is the salty seawater that is even encroaching info some groundwater. Water is an issue in many areas here with desalination plants now planned.
I sympathize. I really do. I had family in Maricopa, AZ. They moved years ago when it became apparent that far too many people than the current, and especially the future, water supply could sustain. They weren't geniuses. They were working class people, but the warnings were there. They listened. They moved. And yet, for every person that left, two people moved in. Even amid stronger and louder warnings. So, yeah... I sympathize, but this was predicted. I remember these warnings in the 80s. No one went in wearing blinders. They just decided to roll the dice, anyways. They gambled. They lost. Soooo.., I only sympathize a bit.
the area became overpopulated, the desert cant sustain so many people. Your family made a good choise to leave. "for every person that left, two people moved in" that is the problem of mass immigration too, for every immigrant taken in there are 2 future immigrants born so the problem never ends
Fell in love with AZ…..went there for vacation many times……each time more and more building…..then the nail in the coffin was upon flying into Phoenix once pristine blue horizon was now brown smog….pools everywhere, even green grass being watered…..miles of desert between towns now one big city…..drove up to Flagstaff was nice there …but never been back…….
I bet that 40 billion to Ukraine would have fixed this right up. I feel so bad for these people. Our government is failing all Americans outside of the weapons and pharmacy business. Good luck guys.
everyone wants to live on a beautiful mountain community to the point nobody considers the ramifications. Let the people that live there continue their lives and stop moving in. if you're from California stay where you're at because you're the problem.
Agree! Wherever you're at stay there and fix your own damn problems instead of ruining that area with horrible policies and then moving somewhere else to ruin it there as well.
Actually I'm a native Calif and remember when this state was red, it wasn't until all the people moving into the state slowly but surely turned it into the mess it is now.
Yeah how about Chino Valley I’ve lost 70 feet of well Water since 1998. and they keep building more and more homes even though they’re supposed to be a law protecting us with 100 year watershed
I remember going to Phoenix and seeing people hose down their driveway, not something we do in the land of 10000 lakes. I thought, wtaf? Anyway, I'm blaming Putin.
HOW ABOUT THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX. Home Collection barrels for Gray Water. Don't flush except for Solids and remember we used to have Outdoor Toilets. Keep thinking.
What else can we expect from Arizona, where reality is totally ignored. This will only get worse. No rain barrels, no conservation measures. Flush toilets instead of composting toilets. Idiots galore.
How many good bills got blocked by republicans. You have people up there who is intentionally blocking bills that would help us. Fir decades they've done this.
@@That.Lady.withtheYarn wait until they hear about the billions that has been sent to Israel every year, a country with subsidized healthcare, college and desalination plants, but they really hate that money going to Ukraine.
Virtually all large cities and population conurbations have grown in the vicinity of a large river. I was posted to Phoenix from the U.K. for job related issues. During my stay, Phoenix and the surrounding areas were expanding at a mind boggling rate. Coming from a wet and windy country, the lack of rain and the lack of any real persuasion to save water, despite the unforgiving heat, were two things which worried me. It was concerning that all of Southern Arizona with very little in the way of a natural indigenous water supply was digging it’s own grave. I was not sorry when my stint was over to get on an aeroplane at Sky Harbour on my one way trip back to the U.K. for coolth, and rain, and green fields.
Fully agree. I'm in Maine, a much wetter environment than AZ. America's southwest is a remarkably beautiful area to live in and experience, but natural limitations must be considered. That's part of the trouble of the American mindset, for too long we've had the resources to just about always overcome any problem. We're bumping up against a lot of overdue issues.
@@pinetree2473 If an outsider is allowed an opinion; I agree that your observation sums up much of what I saw and heard in America. I did admire the 'can do' attitude of many Americans. However, the old adage that the road to hell is paved with good intentions appeared lost on many of the initiatives I saw. Especially the manner in which minority groups who, tended the golf course, put roofs on houses, and generally did the essential but menial tasks were treated with disrespect. Built up resentment often finds an expression in the second generation. Which ultimately leads to societal tension and trouble.
@@etherealrose2139 True, although it’s possible to live with a few temporary challenges regarding power supplies. Which will disappear when the Dogger Bank wind farms get into full swing. The future is considerably more bleak without water.
RE: Leaking water supply lines. Across the country, all these decades of people, mostly conservatives, have consistently voted down public spending initiatives to upgrade public water, power, and sewer improvements and now coming back to haunt them, and its only going to get alot worse.
Yep conservatives (especially the religious ones) are mostly responsible for the downfall of American society. It turns out an effective government is more about solving societal issues than punishing people of lower income levels and deregulation
@Ziplokk lol who said I was a democrat? But since you want to make it political, who blocks any attempt to make ranked choice voting viable. You see how that works? Lol thanks for playing.
I lived in Az for a couple of years back in the 90's. I remember reading a letter to the editor from someone who said, "I pay my water bill, I expect water." Such a strange mind set when you live in a desert.
Wow, when people think stuff appears magically out of nowhere and they don't question where it comes from it bugs the heck out of me. This person bugs the heck out of me. Do they think the ground is a water vending machine? Do they think magical elves bring the water? Sheesh. I have a little bit of family in AZ and I wish they understood the urgency of getting the heck out of there. However, the places that are more sustainable are also more expensive. It's not a great corner to be backed into. ;(
This was predicted over 35 years ago when I was still living in Phoenix. No one listened and homes continued to be built at breakneck speed and has yet to let up. A case of I told you so and you didn't listen.
This sort of living is absurd and unsustainable and it really becomes apparent when more people want to live like this on top of the changing climate. This is just the beginning...
50 years from now., (yes, I am optimistic we will still be here), this is going to seem like a small bump in the road compared to what the western states are in for!
@@johnbob4545 they still have to be refilled every week . Have you ever have a pool in your backyard? Evaporation especially in Las Vegas is tremendous!
What ever fix is finally implemented will only be temporary. As communities continue to be built in the desert states and cities draw their ever increasing water supplies from wells, rivers, and lakes, this is going to get worse. This has to do with exponentially increasing usage over time regarding a limited area resource. We should probably return consumption levels back to 1985 or 90. And hope permanent damage has not been done. All the carbon taxes or electric cars in the world are not going to fix this problem.
Build in the desert and take, take, take and don't give back. Have any of these people built any water saving structures like swales or infiltrating pits?
Actually, as the Greater Phoenix population increases, we lose less water due to the displacement of agriculture. Of course one has to be mindful that when one digs a well, there is a risk of not finding water. In the video, it was due to an unexpected geological feature. This isn't anything new. Yes, the water is low in Lake Mead but this isn't a mysterious crisis... the water sharing scheme with California needs to be renegotiated. In the end, California agriculture may end up getting squeezed, but we'll all soldier on fine, especially Arizona.
The vast majority of the water out West is for agriculture. Limiting the size of municipalities will help, but it doesn't address the elephant in the room. Interestingly, southern California cities use less water now than they did 30 years ago even thought he population has increased. (Not sure if this is true for Arizona, but it seems reasonable to assume.)
Parts of California's Central valley have sunk 30 ft thanks to pumping groundwater. Some of that water is millions of years old and will take a similar time to replace.
What they seem to forget is the water treaty Arizona and Nevada signed with California...the dumbest thing ever. Also why do people keep.moving to Ariz when it's a known fact it's in a drought... I'm so glad I moved in 2018. Being a native of Ariz it was hard to leave my little farm in Gilbert but the city and all the trash people from other stated made it impossible to live there anymore. Now I live peacefully in another country.
