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In the March 21, 2010 Sunday edition of the “Arizona Daily Star” we were treated to the front page headline: “Decision on water could hit here hard”
Please Note: NO WHERE DOES IT SAY WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF WATER!!!
The Setup Line
Tens of thousands of families from Tucson through Pinal County to Phoenix have been living on borrowed water for years.
Payback time is coming.
Sounds pretty ominous doesn’t it? Borrowed water usually means “you didn’t pay for it” I think we pay our water bill every month. So we paid for it. Did we pay as much as we should have? Yes, we paid the amount the water company charged. So we set this argument in the context of something other than a discussion of commerce. We frame it is the form of a postulated argument, based on a bunch of If’s.
The Argument
The Arizona Legislature is considering a bill that would authorize a little-known agency to sell up to $500 million worth of bonds to buy new water supplies to serve these suburban residents.
The bonds, ultimately, would have to be repaid by residents.
This is being made out like it is something new. Bonds have been sold by municipalities for year. They are always repaid by the residents.
Now the argument continues and moves to more conjecture.
One reason the bill is being seriously considered is that most of these homes have no assured, long-term water supply.
No one can assure a long term water supply. Last summer the east coast saw major drought. Water use restrictions were in place in Georgia, Florida and other east coast states. They were running out of water. No Guarantee! If it doesn’t rain there is no water. But it gets better in the next line.
They are being served by a short-term supply that could disappear in a few years to a decade from now
It could. Yes, it could, will it? Nobody knows. Remember if there were abundant surface water in Arizona we “could” be over run by wild hogs doing tremendous environmental damage.
The argument continues, but . . .
Read on. I won’t quote any more of it with this one last exception.
More than 260,000 homes, the vast majority still unbuilt, lie within the district’s boundaries. The district expects to have as many as 340,000 homes by the 2030s.
Homes that don’t exist are the vast majority of homes in the district. How much water does a home that doesn’t exist yet use?
Does this mean those unbuilt homes HAVE TO BE BUILT? Does it mean that we won’t have better ways of utilizing and conserving water by 2030?
This is the kind of argument used years ago for all of us to be charged $3 or $4 a gallon for gas. Not now, but back then. Why? because in the future there would be more cars. This type of argument goes on all the time. What it accomplishes is:
- The sale of newspapers
- The joy of spreading panic to the public
- Totally unreasoned arguments perpetuated
My Questions
How many homes are currently in existence?
How much water is being consumed?
Do we have to build unbuilt homes?
Are these figures based on permits for new homes each year in 2006 when there were over 12,000 permits being pulled in Pima County or in 2009 when there were barely 1000?
Oh, facts? We should never let facts get in the way of a good scare. After all, “payback time is coming”.
