Water Conservation
The City of Tucson is currently using far
more water than it is replacing.
Options and plans to solve this problem
in the future are severely limited
because of the fact that Tucson, Arizona
is desert land. With the population
continually growing, and each populant
continually using more water, something
needs to be done. The only answer
that can be immediately put into action is
water conservation. This solution
can be practiced by individuals, corporations
associations, and many other
people - people need to realize that they need to
help now. Through research,
this paper reveals the specific reasons that people
need to conserve water
now, gives some insight to help the reader understand why
the water will run
out, and tells the reader how they can help now. INTRODUCTION
Water is
the source of all life, especially in a desert community such as
Tucson,
Arizona - where the state's average rainfall is less than 10 inches a
year
(2c). Water is the reason that humans were able to settle in the
Southwest,
and without it, the great city of Tucson would be non-existant.
Humans also have
to realize that this supply of water is valuable and
limited, and unable to
support this region indefinitely. Since we, the local
residents of Tucson, are
currently using far more groundwater than we are
replacing (8), consideration
and planning need to be addressed in the form of
conserving this precious
supplier of life, water. MATERIALS AND METHODS In
searching for materials
relevant to my topic, I was faced with several
options. First, Dr. James Riley
gave me a couple of very useful phone
numbers: one, to contact the Pima
Association of Governments - (520)
792-1093 - and the other, the Arizona
Department of Environmental Quality
- 1-800-234-5677. Each was quite helpful and
offered to send me information
through the mail, but my time span would not
allow this. So then, I turned to
the University of Arizona's Sabio Library
Reference search, available
online at http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/, and
found numerous sources
available by using the keywords "Tucson, Arizona
water conservation". Many of
these were books that I felt were out-dated
and inadequate to my needs, so I
turned to some other search engines on the
internet, using the same key
words. I found several helpful sites, but the most
helpful was the homepage
for Water Resources in the Tucson Basin, available
at
http://ag.arizona.edu/swes/tucwater1/ -- I scrolled down to the area
labeled
internet links to find up-to-date sites with the most information
available on
water conservation in the Tucson area. RESULTS In order to
conceive the concept
that our water supply will not last forever, one must
realize where the water is
coming from. As Water words, a quarterly
newsletter produced by SAWARA,
explained it: "Nearly all water used in this
area comes from an underground
aquifer formed over thousands of years of
geologic time. The aquifer is made up
of varying layers of clays, sands and
gravels that have been deposited in Avra
Valley and the basin which
underlies the greater metropolitan Tucson and Green
Valley area.
Substantial volumes of water, accumulated from years of snowmelt
and
rainfall, are contained within the tiny spaces surrounding the grains
of
these sediments." (8) This picture, shown on the Water Resources
Research
Center WebPages, at http://www.ag.arizona.edu/azwater/ (2d)
shows a nice diagram
of the explanation from above. By understanding how
these aquifers formed over
thousands of years, hopefully you are able to
associate that they do not quickly
replenish themselves. Therefore, at the
rate humans are using the water from the
wells dug into these aquifers, it
will soon be gone. So we must realize that
there are many actions that must
be taken, the most important being
conservation. In research data presented
by the Tucson Active Management Area,
it shows that Tucson is currently using
about 312,000 acre-feet (AF) per year
(1a). The major sources that this water
supply comes from includes groundwater,
effluent water, and CAP water. As
show by the figure below (1b). Water Supplies
Used To Meet Demand - 1994
Source Acre-Feet Percent Central Arizona Project
24,000 7.7 Effluent
11,000 3.5 Groundwater 279,000 88.8 (One acre-foot equals
325,851
gallons.) As one can see, an overwhelmingly large amount of the water
supply
comes specifically through groundwater. The very source that is the
most
difficult to replenish because this groundwater supply has accumulated
over
thousands of years. But as the number of water users is rapidly
increasing each
year, as well as the amount of water each uses, it is easy to
conclude that this
supply will eventually have to run dry (2d). Since little
of this precious water
can be replenished as fast as it is being used, the
only way to assist the
problem today is to use less and reuse the water that
we can - one simple word,
conserve. Conservation is occurring on many levels.
The government has formed
councils and committees to create new systems,
methods, and solutions to
efficiently use the water available to us. Such
groups have formulated
propositions that wisely use recharged wastewater,
unsuitable for human
consumption, for such uses as lawn water and so on (4a).
They have also come up
with programs that cause the water rates to raise once
a consumer uses a certain
amount of water (4b): Therefore, discouraging
wastefulness by putting part of
the punishment (a monetary fine in this case)
on the consumer, and reducing the
penalty inflicted on the environment. This
is a very effective and resourceful
thing to do because the consumer should
be just as concerned with the problem,
realizing that they help contribute to
it every day. Although many people think
that one person really cannot make a
difference, that is not true, because every
gallon of water saved helps. Here
are just a few things and numbers to get you
thinking, taken from the "Water
Conservation and Beat the Peak" (3):
Get a water-saving showerhead Saves
up to a gallon of water a minute Put an
aerator in your sink Saves up to a
gallon of water a minute Sweep your sidewalk
- Don't hose it off This can
save up to 10 gallons a minute Fix your faucets
Saves up to 50 gallons a
day Use the short cycle on your dishwasher Save 10
gallons of water every
cycle Check your toilet for leaks A leaky stool may waste
up to 100 gallons a
day Take shorter showers 5 to 10 gallons are wasted every
minute DISCUSSION
The discovery of underground water is what made the desert
areas, such as
Tucson, the livable communities they are today. Without water we
would not be
able to adapt to these extreme conditions, making this state
called
Arizona -- nothing. Therefore, desert states need to realize that
not all things
last forever and that they need to guard and use wisely the
natural resources
that are available now. Water is an enormous benefactor to
life in the Tucson
Water Basin, as well as the rest of the world, and the
inhabitants must realize
that eventually the source will run out and they
will have no where to turn to.
To prevent this, they need to prepare for
the future and conserve this precious
resource before it turns into a bigger
problem than we are facing today.
CONSLUSION Tucson's future depends on
the wise and efficient use of water - the
most precious natural resource
found in this barren desert. If we do our part,
we can better prepare for the
future and make this a better place for those yet
to come. Best said by
Daniel R. Patterson, an arid ecosystem ecologist,
"Both citizens and industry
must learn to live in true harmony with
the
desert".
Bibliography
1. Arizona Department of Water
Resources Homepage - by clicking on Arizona
Water Information link, then
Statewide Overview link, then AMA Overview link,
then Tucson Active
Management Area link, then Tucson AMA.
(a)
http:www.adwr.state.az.us/AZWaterInfo/InsideAMAs/amatucson.html (b)
http://www.adwr.state.az.us/AZWaterInfo/statewide/amas.html
2. Arizona
Water Resources Homepage - through the University. (a)
http://www.ag.arizona.edu/azwater/uses.html.
(b)
http://www.ag.arizona.edu/azwater/hist.thml (c)
http://www.ag.arizona.edu/azwater/clim.html
(b)
http://www.ag.arizona.edu/azwater/ground.html. 3. City of Tucson,
AZ
Homepage.
http://www.ci.tucson.az.us/water/tsnwtr/conserve/beatpeak/tips.thm.
4.
Metropolitan Domestic Water Improvement District - Tucson, AZ
Homepage. (a)
http://www.metrowater.com/conservation.htm (b)
http://www.metrowater.com/rates.htm
5. Patterson, Daniel R.. "Eroding Our
Quality of Life". The Arizona
Daily Star. September 24, 1998. 6. Sheldon,
Dana. Estimated Water Balance.
Available on the internet - on the Water
Resources in the Tucson Basin Colloquia
Homepage, under the 1996 Final
Class Reports link. http://ag.arizona.edu/swes/tucwater1/final96.htm
. 7.
Tucson Regional Water Council Homepage.
http://www.azstarnet.com/~trwc/prior.thm.
8. Water Words. Published by
SAWARA. Volume 16, No. 1 - Jan./Feb./March, 1998.