Which Way Goes Desire

When we talk about the availability of water resources, we assume 0.5+ acre foot per person.  
As people f.... and population increases, the question for Arizona is whether our sexual desire will overcome our thirst. 
That's an interesting question. 
The disturbing complexity is that thirst will kill us and sex, or the lack of it, will make life unpleasant.  
There's a finite limit to Arizona's water...a finite limit to population hasn't been found.
If you need it spelled out, a growing population will have effects on water use.
You can pick up sex at the local grocery store.  Wanna quible about water? 

Water and Money Are the Same

“We’re paying them $54,000 for nothing,” he said.

Diedrich said Griffin and Brown were right in the first place to suspect the City would have to pay the fee regardless of whether it wanted to or not.

Another problem Diedrich and Marchione had with the fee was that it was solely imposed on municipalities, meaning that unincorporated areas weren’t paying one cent for water, which is every person’s most basic necessity. Diedrich also pointed out that 80 to 90 percent of the state’s surface water is in unincorporated land.

The state claims the water fees are necessary to balance its budget, but Diedrich isn’t buying it.

“It’s the state’s way of covering the costs of groundwater,” he said. “In my opinion, that’s not balancing the budget.”

(from Maricopa Monitor, TriValleyCentral.com, November 1, 2011)

The names and people don’t matter much, just tired players in a tedious game of politics and money. The State of Arizona hasn’t gotten it quite right yet but it’s coming close.  It will bicker, squabble, gesture and pose . . . finally coming to the conclusion that WATER and MONEY are the same.

Without this intimate relationship, housing developers investing a million and hoping to make millions will not be able to certify, guarantee, warrant there will be a 100-year assured supply of the stuff.

From the other side, millions will not buy what isn’t there.

Ground water? Aquifers? Both are ephemeral!

If y’care to see what’s there, look out your backdoor.

Environment and Jobs

In a recent column titled, “Party of Pollution”, Paul Krugman writing in the October 20, 2011, NY Times remarks that current thought among some Republicans wants environmental laws defanged for the ostensible purpose of creating jobs.

 

Krugman, concludes that suspending or eliminating environmental laws will simply make us sicker and poorer.

In a coincidental presentation to the Cottonwood City Council, Andy Groseta, head of the Arizona Cattle Growers Association, took a cue from some of the positions of Republican presidential candidates and initiated an attack on the National Environment Policy Act (NEPA) calling for a five-year moratorium on legal challenges under the Act. He singled out federal environmental regulations as standing in the path of the Arizona Cattle Growers Association plans to place thousands of cows in the federal forests. 

Without cattle eating more of the government grass, he says, calamitous fires will continue to ravage the Southwest and future famine was imminent. He claimed, also, his plan opens up the prospect of future jobs. 

"We need a 'time out' from the environmental process to harvest more trees and get more cattle out there," he said.

 
He called the measure a "jobs creator bill."

Job creation, as a concept, has become the new enabler.  Despite the temporary change created in the name of jobs, longer lasting effects will affect the environment, rivers and water resources in particular.

Without trees and grass rain impacts the ground directly and in this hilly region of the Southwest run-off, or just simple erosion, becomes a problem.  Run-off loads rivers with silt as topsoil is washed away.

Clear cutting was implicit.  Selective cutting of trees to clean out years of undergrowth and neglect was not mentioned. 


In this desert environment trees such as Douglas Fir and Ponderosa Pine take decades to mature. 

A moratorium on EPA Regulations is, in effect, a permanent solution in the desert.  

In contrast, for example, trees in the Northwest reach harvestable size in 15 years because of the abundant rainfall.  Cottonwood, Clarkdale, and Jerome don’t get abundant rainfall.  

Obviously, we all have a stake in this public position and ranchers should not hold a special position that alters our water resources because of queer, uneducated, special interests.

Our water resources are more important than Arizona Cattle Growers Association interests.