SRP is revitalizing old canals in south Phoenix. Could it help cool the hottest parts of town?

Flood irrigation can really change the feel of a neighborhood in metro Phoenix.

If you’ve ever walked through an old irrigated neighborhood in the summer, you can feel the difference. There are big, old growth trees, there’s grass, it’s easy to tell it’s cooler.

But, there are lots of underserved neighborhoods in south Phoenix and other parts of town where the old canals that deliver that irrigated water need to be repaired.

Enter Salt River Project's new program: the Community Irrigation Revitalization Initiative, or CIRI. In the Valley, SRP is making investments in historically disadvantaged neighborhoods that have flood irrigation systems that are aging and in need of significant repair, so water can flow, grass can grow and trees can develop deep roots. And it has the potential to really transform neighborhoods.

They started with a pilot program in one south Phoenix neighborhood, but much more is planned.

The Show spoke with Elvy Barton, SPR’s senior manager of water and forest sustainability, about it — and the agricultural history of the Valley where it began.

Sativa Peterson

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KJZZ

Full conversation

ELVY BARTON: SRP was really founded in the late-1800s on the agricultural community, and as the Phoenix metropolitan area began to develop and change over time between the 1920s and the 1970s, a lot of these agricultural areas really urbanized. And along came with that was these neighborhood flood irrigation systems.

So instead of flooding agricultural fields —

LAUREN GILGER: Your fields. Yeah.

ELVY BARTON: You were now irrigating people's front and back yards. And so it's really kind of a unique system.

LAUREN GILGER: It's very Phoenix. I didn't know that's where it came from. I love that. And there was a lot of farming in especially south Phoenix, but all over the Valley really.

So that's a little of this, you know, Phoenix history of these. Talk about how it works today. Like, it's sort of an odd system. I'm not in one of these neighborhoods, but I'm near one of them and I have some friends who live on these irrigated lots. There's somebody who comes by, turns a very old-looking valve. Zanjeros, right?

ELVY BARTON: Yeah, absolutely. So Salt River Project, SRP, manages seven reservoirs and dams across three watersheds, and the water that comes from those reservoirs and dams then filters its way down a series of canals that snake their way through the Valley.

And then SRP delivers what we call to the high corner of a neighborhood. And then from there, this has really become the responsibility of the neighborhood to really manage and to maintain those private flood irrigation systems in the neighborhoods.

And so you traditionally will see those canals winding their way through the Phoenix metropolitan area, but they also continue into the neighborhoods, which is really —

LAUREN GILGER: Under the streets usually, yeah.

ELVY BARTON: Yeah, sometimes they're piped, sometimes they're open ditches. And so there's a lot of opportunity to really make these systems more efficient and work better for these neighborhoods.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, and that's what you're doing with this project here and in specific parts of town. Like when I think of flood irrigated districts, I think of, you know, if you look at an overhead map of Phoenix and you see where all the greenery is, it's in those areas, and usually like along Central Avenue north of downtown, or you know, in those kind of older parts of central Phoenix where you'll — it might be cooler there. They're going to have big old-growth trees that you can't get in lots of other parts of the city.

Are you looking at kind of making those quality-of-life improvements to some of these other areas?

ELVY BARTON: So you're really speaking to the wonderful benefits related to these flood irrigated neighborhoods, where you're allowing for water to — it's actually watering less frequently than you would in some of the areas that don't have flood irrigation.

So we only deliver water once a month during the cooler months and twice a month during the hotter months. And what that does is it allows for water to, like, for 2 to 3 inches to soak over the land and then just really slowly seep in. And that creates an opportunity for larger and deeper root systems so that vegetation can be more resilient to heat and drought.

But it also allows and supports larger vegetation and greener spaces for communities and for neighborhoods. And so it talks about to getting to cooler temperatures, reducing urban heat island effect, and creating drought resiliency for vegetation, which is really going to be key and really very much important for the Phoenix metropolitan area.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So you answered one of the, I think, probably common criticisms of this right there, which is that they're using too much water, right? But this is not the case — it uses less.

ELVY BARTON: It actually does, and it's actually a really efficient mechanism to use water because it's going to be staying on that landscape and being really soaking in, creating deeper root systems.

LAUREN GILGER: So let's talk about the impacts this could have in other parts of the city. Like we're at a moment when Phoenix is just getting hotter all the time because of climate change, urban heat island effect, all these kind of big forces, right? Is this something that you think could try to fight some of those things going into a hotter future?

ELVY BARTON: Absolutely. So right now we're really focused on a neighborhood in the south Phoenix neighborhood, but we really do see the need all across the SRP water service territory where there is a lot of aging infrastructure that could be updated, be more efficient, create water conservation benefits, and really enhance these green spaces, which is really going to help us in the long term keeping our neighborhoods and our population cooler.

LAUREN GILGER: So how much water do you think we can conserve here?

ELVY BARTON: It really will depend on each of the projects, but for example, the project that we're doing in south Phoenix, we've estimated that it's going to save almost 76 million gallons of water over the next five years.

And so that's a really important thing not only for the community because that's a cost-saving measure for them, but it also is really important to SRP because we have a community water conservation goal to help conserve 5 billion gallons by 2035.

LAUREN GILGER: And I mean, that's going to be maybe a drop in the bucket, but more important nonetheless as we go forward looking at these Colorado River negotiations, looking at a drier future. I mean, I guess every little drop counts at some point.

ELVY BARTON: Absolutely. And the wonderful thing about making all these drops count is that they become exponential, so they build on top of each other. And I think that's really the beauty about conservation in kind of this environment.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. One thing that comes to mind here when you're talking about these greener neighborhoods, old growth, you know, grass and lawns for these irrigated lots, things like that — I mean, do some people argue that we just shouldn't do that at all? We should accept that we live in this desert city and, you know, xeriscape and do, you know, desert-growth trees, palo verdes, things that don't take very much water?

ELVY BARTON: Yeah, and we absolutely should be investing in desert-adapted landscapes as well, because that's going to be really important, too. But the fact is is that trees and shade are actually going to reduce the temperatures, which actually reduces water demand, it reduces electricity demand, and it's more affordable for our customers.

So if there's an opportunity to invest in shade and landscapes like that, it's really important for long-term resilience.

LAUREN GILGER: Ripple effect, no pun intended. OK. So what's next here? This is just a very first phase of a pilot program, right?

ELVY BARTON: Absolutely. We think that there is so much need across the landscape here in the SRP water service territory that we really want to expand this. We see needs with schools that have lost access to irrigation, community gardens. And so there's a lot of opportunities to work with a wide range of different types of partners in different types of neighborhoods that really could see the great benefits of long-term infrastructure and long-term resilience.

LAUREN GILGER: So maybe more to come. All right, we'll leave it there. Elvy Barton, senior manager of water and forest sustainability with SRP joining us. Elvy, thank you so much for coming in. Appreciate it.

ELVY BARTON: Thank you. I had a wonderful time.