Tucson, AZ slips in ranking of sustainability because of water supply, use issues

Tucson got a little less environmentally sustainable during the past two years compared with other major metro areas, a new national survey has concluded.

In part, that’s because the national SustainLane rankings of the 50 largest cities added a new category this year — water supply — in which this and most other arid Southwestern cities ranked poorly.

The drop in the SustainLane rating of Tucson from 20th to 22nd on the new survey wasn’t a total knock at this city, however, since Tucson still ranks in the top half of the 50 cities in the survey. Tucson scored better than average in 10 of the 16 categories surveyed, including air quality, green building practices, environmental innovations and use of local food and agriculture. Portland, Ore., ranked first overall for sustainability among the 50 cities, according to the report. Phoenix ranked lower than Tucson overall at 32nd.

But on water, Tucson ranked 47th worst out of 50 cities. It ranked low for being too far from its principal long-term water source, for not being as aggressive as many other cities in its water-conservation policies and for its rapid growth in an arid environment.

“Your originating source of much of your water is the Colorado River . . . one of the farthest away of any of the cities ranked from their water supply,” said James Elsen, SustainLane’s CEO. “It’s dependent on snowpack, which is declining. That puts you at great risk. You are like at the end of the pipe.”

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Source: Arizona Daily Star

For more information about water conservation, visit Nuprana.com’s LEARN section

Largest Aquifer in the US is Running Dry

Agriculture in the Great Plains is heavily dependent on groundwater supplies from the Ogallala Aquifer. Over 70% of the total value of crop production in the area comes from irrigated acreage overlying the aquifer, which encompasses 174,000 square miles and under lies parts of eight states: Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming (Alley, Reilly, and Franke).

The abundant supply of feed grains produced with water from the Ogallala Aquifer fuels the livestock, meatpacking, and ethanol industries. Additionally, the area produces approximately 32% of the national production of cotton (National Agricultural Statistics Service [NASS]). Many of these industries are vertically integrated so that changes in one industry will impact the others, having a ripple effect on the economy. The unfortunate consequence of this integration is that regional economies have become precariously water dependent.

The Ogallala Aquifer has very little recharge and is essentially a finite resource. In portions of the Ogallala Aquifer, up to 40% of the predevelopment storage has already been depleted (Feng and Segarra), and the overdraft continues to take place. Current aquifer decline rates foretell the eventual demise of irrigated agriculture and conversion to dryland production, which may have a significant long-term negative economic impact on the area.

Faced with this situation, policymakers, state water managers, and other stakeholders are investigating conservation policy alternatives aimed at reducing current levels of groundwater consumption and extending the economic life of the aquifer. In order to extend the economic life of the aquifer and maintain the economic base of the region, both voluntary and mandated policy intervention may need to be considered.

Source: Economic Efficiency of Short-Term Versus Long-Term Water Rights Buyouts by Wheeler, Erin Golden, Bill; Johnson, Jeffrey; Peterson, Jeffrey

Lance Armstrong targeted for his water waste

HOUSTON (NY Times)— Lance Armstrong is one of the favorite sons of Texas and a model citizen known as much for his social conscience as his cycling. So it came as a surprise when it was revealed this week that he is one of the biggest individual users of water in Austin, where he lives.

In July, Mr. Armstrong, who won the Tour de France seven times, used a whopping 330,000 gallons of water at his lush Spanish-colonial home, with an acre of gardens and a swimming pool, city water authority officials said. The bill for July was $2,460.

This tremendous flow of H2O, which is 38 times what the average household in the city uses in the summer, comes as Texas is going through a dry spell and officials are asking people to cut back on watering their lawns. “We are definitely short on rain,” Lisa Rhodes, a spokeswoman for the authority, said with a sigh.

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Source: New York Times

For more information on water conservation, visit www.nuprana.com