To officials, Queen Creek is a model of how to confront the Southwest’s water woes head-on. The city expects to ultimately spend $730 million to tap into faraway groundwater, insulating themselves from drought for decades to come.
But a proposed “water resource fee” to fund the project has brought furious pushback from the highest water users in town, in a conservative place where leaders pride themselves on lowering taxes. It’s also renewed long-standing tensions over whether Queen Creek is expanding too fast for its resources, as city officials say they expect their population to nearly double by around 2050.
Other Southwest metropolises are facing similar questions about how to keep growing in arid places where water is scarce and getting more so. Arizona’s desert cities are in an especially tough position because they hold more junior water rights than other cities that draw on the Colorado River, such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Diego…
The average single-family home would pay an extra $57 or $138 a month once the water fee is fully phased in, officials said, depending on the details of their usage…
Incorporated in 1989 as an agricultural community of just a couple thousand people, the city’s population has grown to about 90,000, and the water issue stoked doubts among some longtime residents that the rapid change was good for them and the town.
Rapid suburban growth presents a particular set of challenges, including establishing local infrastructure that can meet the current and future needs of the community. Water is essential to daily life but is not as easy to secure in some places compared to others.
While it sounds like current residents and officials are wrestling with how to pay for current and future needs, what might this do to forecasted suburban growth? Would a community turn down growth because of not having enough water? Or would people attracted by cheaper housing here say no to a house because of water prices or water uncertainty? Would growth in a metropolitan region significantly shift toward communities that have secured future water and prices?
This applies to water in Arizona but it might also apply to other community needs. If gas and electricity prices are higher because of power needs and grid concerns. If prices suddenly spike for constructing roads, bridges, and highways. A need for internet equipment but that material is not available. And so on.
The bigger picture issue might be this: the price of a house is important for Americans. This story discusses water and hints that the monthly costs of owning a home might significantly increase. For these homeowners in Arizona, can they predict water prices five or ten years down the road? The house might look reasonable now but utility bills can cause a lot of people problems.
