LAUREN GILGER: The city of Scottsdale and its water future has been in the headlines a lot lately, from its on-again, off-again plans to get highly treated wastewater directly to your tap to its reliance on Colorado River water amid what are likely to be pretty big cuts coming to that supply.
Now, Scottsdale Mayor Lisa Borowski says they're taking a major step towards securing their long-term water outlook by directing their city manager and city attorney to potentially create a large water use ordinance for the city.
Camryn Sanchez from KJZZ’s Politics Desk joined The Show to talk more about it.
LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, Camryn.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Good morning.
LAUREN GILGER: OK, so what exactly does this most recent announcement from the mayor say about the city's water future?
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: You know, what's weird is that it didn't really say anything. So basically, we got this press release saying that the City Council is directing their staff to have a meeting to talk about creating an ordinance, and the ordinance is going to have something to do with water, and that something is going to help secure the water future.
LAUREN GILGER: Right. OK. So let's talk about that. They have to kind of diversify their water sources in Scottsdale. And because Scottsdale is in a somewhat unique position, especially in comparison to other cities in the Valley, they get more of their water from the Colorado River than most places, 70% is the number. And that water is likely facing big cuts.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Yeah, and in some parts of Scottsdale, it's even more than 70%, depending on where you are in the city. Your water is a hodgepodge of different sources. But they have to be prepared for these cuts, and nobody knows exactly how much those cuts are going to be. Therefore, you don't know how strong the impact is going to be.
So the city of Scottsdale, the politicians, local officials, are trying to be prepared for the worst-case scenario.
LAUREN GILGER: OK. They recently also approved in Scottsdale an $8 million purchase of water credits from Harquahala Valley, which is another kind of aquifer in the area, in an effort to diversify its water portfolio. Could that make a dent?
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: I think it could. I think it's practical. And I don't think it's probably the first or the last thing that we're going to see in this vein from municipalities who want to not have all of their eggs in one basket, so to speak. If you're having water coming in from different sources, then one of those sources being impacted doesn't hurt you as badly.
LAUREN GILGER: OK, so I had Scottsdale's interim water director, Thyra Ryden-Diaz, in, and she kind of disputed some of this broad characterization of Scottsdale's water situation. We'll hear from her in a moment, we'll hear that interview.
But first, let me ask you, Camryn, about the history here, because Scottsdale has been sort of a trailblazer in what's called advanced water treatment, AWT. And this is one of the first places in the country that reused treated wastewater in certain areas. Tell us how it's used there.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Yes, so basically, in Scottsdale, your wastewater goes into this giant plant and it gets purified there, and then it goes into this aquifer and it recharges it. And then it does eventually go back into the faucets and water systems of homes and businesses in Scottsdale.
So, fun fact, this has actually been in use right for years now, many years in Scottdale.
LAUREN GILGER: Right, wastewater, treated wastewater, is already in the taps in Scottsdale, it just goes through this very long process.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Which I think might be news to some people.
But yes, it's not actually a new program. And some of that wastewater that's been treated goes into things like the golf courses, and there's a system for that. So again, this is not a new concept. This isn't even the only municipality in the country or the world that's doing this.
But there is a plan to change the way that it works, in the terms of instead of having it be purified and then go and sit in an aquifer for a long time, a period of maybe 10 or so years, having it be treated and then go straight back into the taps.
LAUREN GILGER: OK. This is advanced water purification, AWP, a little bit different than advanced water treatment. And like you're saying, like a more advanced version here that would kind of skip that aquifer process. Tell us about what plans have looked like in Scottsdale on that.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: They were looking at funding that program, and that more direct program, it would, it would bypass the charging system, it would bypass the long waiting period. But the water itself wouldn't really be any different. So it would just make things faster and more streamlined.
LAUREN GILGER: OK. This pure water, as the city is calling it, is kind of being dragged right now into the political fray. It's being derided, this phrase "toilet to tap" that we've all heard. Tell us about the kind of political side of this.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: So basically, we got some folks running for Scottsdale City Council, and this is one of the points they've been crusading on from the get-go. So we've got this former lawmaker, Michelle Ugenti-Rita, we've got a guy named Bob Littlefield. They are running sort of together on a slate, and they're accusing the current Scottsdale City Council and Solange Whitehead of basically trying to force these democratic or Green New Deal or scary toilet-to-tap policies without being honest about that water and claiming that the city of Scottsdale, under the management it has now, is trying to force residents to unknowingly drink basically sewage, which, you know, is not really the case.
But it is an effective scare tactic. And we've seen Ugenti-Rita, she appeared with Rob Schneider, who's an actor/MAGA person, sort of posing with a glass of dark brown liquid and saying, "This is, what you're going to be drinking in Scottsdale if you don't elect Michelle and the other people that she's running with."
Now, whether or not that's going to work on the residents of Scottsdale who are voting in the upcoming election, can't be sure. But I think that maybe the City Council saw the writing on the wall and didn't want to push this purification system hard ahead of this election.
LAUREN GILGER: And we'll hear from the Scottsdale interim water director in a moment about what she says is happening in terms of the funding of that advanced water purification. But one last question for you before I let you go, Camryn, because I think the irony here is that advanced water treatment has been really successful, and it's seen as sort of a model in the water world, right?
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: It's been successful. It's been used for I think a few decades now. It's not new. We're not the only place that does it. And also, anywhere you're getting water, it has been treated. And it's possible that weird things have been in it, like contaminants, but they've been filtered out.
So if you're buying a bottle of Aquafina, if you're turning on your tap and using a Brita filter, that's treated water. And I know that the idea of toilet to tap definitely puts the fear of God in people's hearts, but it is not a new system.
LAUREN GILGER: KJZZ's Camryn Sanchez joining us. Camryn, thank you.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Thank you.
LAUREN GILGER: And we'll hear more on this from Scottsdale's interim water director after the break.
LAUREN GILGER: Good morning. It is The Show here on KJZZ 91.5. I'm Lauren Gilger. And now let's continue with our look at the water situation in the city of Scottsdale, which has been getting a lot of attention of late because of the amount of water it receives from the shrinking Colorado River, which is likely to face major cuts.
And there were a lot of headlines recently about the most recent Scottsdale City Council approved budget, and that in it, leaders voted to freeze funding for its plan to send treated wastewater directly to consumers, or advanced water purification.
But Thyra Ryden-Diaz, interim senior director of Scottsdale Water, told me it is not as simple as saying this funding was frozen.
THYRA RYDEN-DIAZ: We have the same amount of funding for water projects, $331 million roughly, as we did in the previous fiscal year.
LAUREN GILGER: But $100 million included in that budget won't be available until fiscal year 2028. And it's for, quote, "new water sources." That could be for treating wastewater, but Ryden-Diaz told me it depends on the results of studies they're currently carrying out, and revised rules being issued by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, or ADEQ.
OK, so you're saying that advanced water purification funding could be there in the future. You want to study it first?
THYRA RYDEN-DIAZ: So we're studying it right now. We're studying the capital and the operational cost that we would have under the current ADEQ rule, and we're waiting for the final rule to come out, that may be a whole another year.
So we're, we're three-quarters of the way there. We just need to study what that, that other 25% is and if it's the best use for our, our capital and our operational funds moving forward.
LAUREN GILGER: OK, so that's the city's take on headlines saying the city is backing away from advanced water purification. But Ryden-Diaz also wanted to defend Scottsdale's long-term water situation. Here is more of our conversation.
This has been sort of dragged into politics of late. I wondered what you think about this, because you've got lots of sort of debate about this. We heard a lot of that at the City Council meeting recently, and maligning the science of this. What do you say to folks who are skeptical about having that water in their tap?
THYRA RYDEN-DIAZ: I give them the example of the water bottle. When people are concerned about drinking that water, I said, "If you buy your Costco water or your Fry's water and you leave your plastic water bottle in your car and it gets a little warm, that water is way dirtier than the water that comes out of the pure water for sure. I mean, and it's tested, and you're not testing that, that, that water bottle. We test all the time.
LAUREN GILGER: So let's talk about what the makeup of water in Scottsdale might look like moving forward, right? Because the city uses a lot of Colorado River water, 70% is the number that keeps coming up. And, looking at massive cuts to the Colorado River water coming to the state, to the region, those negotiations are ongoing, but it seems very clear Arizona is not going to fare very well there.
What's your response to that? Is that the case? Do you think Scottsdale is in a really tough spot looking at the future of the Colorado River?
THYRA RYDEN-DIAZ: So I get disappointed by some of the coverage because Scottsdale has worked on, and I've worked on capital projects in the, in the water department for more than 20 years. And so Scottsdale has planned, we definitely have planned our capital expenses, we've planned for this for a long time, we knew.
So our water portfolio is pretty large, and we've participated in lots of studies like the Roosevelt Dam and bringing that dam elevation up, and then we have some of that water. We have water, we're participating in the Bartlett Dam study, so if that we raise that dam, we might participate in that capital expense to get that water there, and that comes from the Verde Valley River watershed. And then we have water east of Phoenix in a different AMA, in the Harquahala Valley. So we have that coming in, we're ahead on that. We have some long-term storage credits that we're going to consider at the next council meeting, buying some of those, and we have and we've been banking.
So we only use about, about a quarter of the Colorado River water that we get. We have been pumping for a long time, so we have been saving for a really long time.
LAUREN GILGER: So that 70% number is not wrong, you're just saying, “we don't use it all.”
THYRA RYDEN-DIAZ: We do not use it all. And then, and we pump not only in the Phoenix AMA, we also store in Tucson, we've stored with the Superstitions, so we've spread out to make sure that if there was a problem with the Phoenix AMA that we would be covered. So we have really planned really well, and we have the infrastructure to supply our needs for our citizenry for a very long time, and we have a diverse portfolio that we can switch up if we need to.
LAUREN GILGER: So, and when you're talking about AMAs, you're talking about these active management areas, it's essentially like you're saying, we store in various groundwater reservoirs?
THYRA RYDEN-DIAZ: Yes, so bank accounts. So that's the Phoenix bank account for water, that's right.
LAUREN GILGER: So, I mean, when you look at the future of water, not just in Scottsdale, but in the region, do you think it's going to have to be sort of a patchwork like this, like you're describing these diverse water sources? It's going to have to rely on a lot of different areas because there will be less water for everyone?
THYRA RYDEN-DIAZ: So yes, and, and it's a whole state problem. It's also about getting the water where it is. So there's no more cheap water left. So we got to let go of that.
But we also have to all work because being able to water exchange and Phoenix is, is working on a swap program, we'll participate with them on that when we get some more details. And we're going to be part of the solution. We're not approaching this, there's no silver bullet for any community. So we're looking at it as a buckshot solution, that's what I told council. So there's going to be a lot of pieces that we, we get together, and we're going to have to be real flexible with the solutions.
LAUREN GILGER: How big of a piece do you anticipate advanced water purification being of that pie in the future?
THYRA RYDEN-DIAZ: You know, every city's going to be different, and so, and it really depends on how much wastewater you have right now. Like we're going to push out conservation because every drop we save is one that we don't have, and that's just being good stewards of our resource.
That's not to scare anyone, that's not to give these water restrictions that don't make sense, and there's, there's lots of things we're going to do. We're going to talk about, we've been working on, smart meters and we have little listening devices that listen for leaks and we're, we're, there's a lot of things that we're doing. But we've been planning for decades, we're ready for this.
LAUREN GILGER: You're ready for this?
THYRA RYDEN-DIAZ: We've always known that we weren't going to be able to rely on that, that Colorado River water forever. And so we, we have the infrastructure and certainly the, the technical know-how to figure out how to further diversify our, our portfolio moving forward.
LAUREN GILGER: But 70% of your water coming from the Colorado River, if that's gone, how do you ...
THYRA RYDEN-DIAZ: But that's 70% of what we're using right now, and we're only using three-quarters of that. So we just don't save as much.
LAUREN GILGER: All right. Thyra Ryden-Diaz joining us, interim senior director for Scottsdale Water, joining us. Thyra, thank you very much for coming in studio, appreciate it.
THYRA RYDEN-DIAZ: Thank you.
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