Skies Remain Dangerously Blue

Jerome is a small town . . . its population somewhere under 500 . . . and it's forms of communication with its residents  borders on colloquial.  A sign in the post office asked residents to please conserve water because the overflow from storage tanks was running only intermittently.  When I drove past yesterday the overflow was dry.

Jerome is an old copper mining community that once boasted a population of 15,000.  With a current population of only 400-plus
the town is experiencing the initial indications of a water crisis.

Jerome's water comes from an aquifer beneath Cleopatra Hill, captured in 3 water storage tanks and gravity fed to the town below.  The aquifer is replenished by precipitation.

In the last 6 weeks there has been about 1/8 inch of rain, hardly enough to reach the aquifer let alone replenish it.  As I've said in previous posts, if you want to see what the desert will support, "Just look out your backdoor."  It isn't much, yet the tree planting, car washing, and yard/garden watering go unabated.

This on 3 - 10 inches of rain annually.

Arizona's BP Disaster

Many people are appalled at the British Petroleum oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Remains of Mining in Jerome

The death of human and aquatic life has been vast.
With the probable death of the fishing industry in the coastal regions of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama the impact on people's livelihood is projected to be equally as bad.
But, closer to home . . . 
What difference is there between the BP spill in the Gulf and the devastation of mining operations in the state of Arizona?
Because of its mining heritage, Jerome has become a tourist attraction.
But, also, typical of the boom/bust economy of mining, the mines closed in 1953 and the population dropped from a high of 15,000 to a low of 350 today.
What has been left behind?
Note, in the photo above, nothing has grown on the mine waste in nearly 60 years.
Why?
And what has happened to the poisonous compounds that have leeched through the waste and possibly into the groundwater aquifer below? 

Where's My Water?

This small trickle of water is a good sign in Jerome, Arizona. It signifies that the water storage tanks in this small town (pop. 350) are full and what you are seeing is the overflow as it trickles down Mingus Mountain on it's way to the Verde River.

The good news is that water has finally become an issue in Arizona...the bad news is that people are still playing games and show no inclination to stop.

The town of Prescott is struggling with how much water it will take from the Big Chino aquifer...the city of Phoenix is haggling with its internal political interests about water usage and where the whole issue is going.

Into this confused controversy steps a well meaning reporter, Phil Wright of the Verde Independent and its on-line iteration, the verdenews.com, an impetuous Jerome Town Clerk/acting Town Manager, Terez Storm, and the possibility that a water shortage could exist some day in Jerome.

Alarmed at this prospect, Ms. Storm (acting alone as far as anyone knows) declared a water emergency and left town for a month's vacation. Reacting to pressure from the Town's administrators, the verdenews,com "disappeared" the piece from its article list (but not its archives). And Ms. Storm? She has been replaced as acting Town Manager and Town Clerk.

But...we digress...the point is water...isn't it?

While this small trickle of water is reassuring to the present population, it represents the excess between what is used now by 350 people and what once served a population 40-times as large...15,000 mine workers, mine executives, merchants, bar owners and prostitutes.

If you ask a couple of old-timers around here about the difference between now and the olden days, their thoughts are about the same.

"Well," they say, "people lived differently."

"People didn't have flush toilets then and they took baths maybe once a week out of a bucket..."

"Y'have to remember," they'll say, "we used to get a big snow pack on Mingus Mountain and now it's nowhere near the size."

No wonder the bars flourished...keg beer or bottles...it was probably cleaner than the water.

It's kinda alarming, however, that 350 people are using water at substantially the same rate as 15,000 people did 60 - 90 years ago.

For comfort my thoughts keep returning to Terez Storm who issued an "unauthorized" alarm, my neighbors who grow gardens of non-native desert species and water lawns for 6 - 8 hrs a night, another neighbor who has a 700-plant vineyard, and a city administration that just doesn't get it.

When they turn the tap and the faucet is dry, the causes of global warming will pale in the light of returning to sponge baths from buckets. An old adage states that all politics is local...all I'd add is that a lot depends on how hot and dry it gets.