scarcity, while it brings challenges, also brings opportunities. And it requires expertise that we believe we can bring to bear,” says Stuart Lee, EPCOR’s chief executive.
“We’re bringing that same approach to Arizona, where we’re finding water resources outside of city centres” – like the Harquahala, says Joe Gysel, president of EPCOR’s U.S. division, which provides water and wastewater services to nearly 800,000 people in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
The Liberty Utilities wastewaster treatment plant releases water to recharge an aquifer north-east of Phoenix.Studies are under way on each option after Arizona this summer earmarked US$1.2-billion for water conservation and augmentation. Two-thirds of that amount will go toward finding new water supplies for the state, which has historically relied on the Colorado River for more than a third of its needs. But rapidly falling water levels in the Colorado basin have forced cutbacks.
For years, utilities have sought to convince homeowners to use less water. The state of Arizona boasts that it uses less water now than six decades ago, despite a sevenfold increase in population. It’s not his only controversial water idea. He also wants to look at how much people pay for water. State law requires water rates to be “fair and reasonable,” but it has never defined what that meansThat’s a requirement if new water is to be found.Nathan VanderKlippe/The Globe and Mail
But Arizona, Mr. Buschatzke believes, has already reached an inflection point where its water problems have grown so acute that changes once considered difficult are becoming possible.
👍🇨🇦