WATER == THE END OF GROWTH?

Despite wild claims that "growth pays for itself," the local sales tax has recently been increased to help pay for development that won't pay for itself. In addition to the looming Peak Oil problem, we also have a Peak Water problem:

Drought still in effect despite 4 days of rain
Arizona Daily Star, The (Tucson, AZ)July 31, 2006Author: Tony Davis, ARIZONA DAILY STAR
But a lot more rain must fall over a much longer period to lift the region out of the drought that has hung around the past seven years, the weather service said.

"One wet monsoon season is not going to bring us back to where we don't have a drought anymore," said Craig Shoemaker, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Tucson. "It is going to take a wet fall and a wet winter, several wet monsoon seasons mixed in with a few wet winters, to even begin to get us where we're at normal."

Despite developer's extravagant claims, their own studies have to omit cost areas to paint a rosy picture:

County plans new impact-fee analysis
Arizona Daily Star, The (Tucson, AZ)
July 23, 2006
Author: Joseph Barrios, ARIZONA DAILY STAR

The home-building industry most likely pays its way "in very key areas" like developing wastewater-treatment systems, Huckelberry said. But development lags behind in paying for transportation costs. Other services, like staffing government services and maintaining some infrastructure, remain unaccounted for, even in the SAHBA study.


Here's one cost unaccounted for by SAHBA:

Water rates to rise 4.6% on Aug. 7
Arizona Daily Star, The (Tucson, AZ)
July 7, 2006
Author: Rob O'Dell, ARIZONA DAILY STAR

The City Council voted 6-1 for a 4.6 percent increase in Tucson's water rates - a $1 a month increase for average users - starting Aug. 7.

City officials said the increases are needed so the city can expand its new underground storage facility in Avra Valley and start taking its entire Central Arizona Project allocation of Colorado River water by 2009 instead of 2015. Taking the full allocation is key, officials said, because if a water shortage is ever declared, Tucson risks losing access to its full allocation of CAP water for decades at a time if it's not using the entire amount at the time when it happens.

A bit of sanity:

County asks halt to golf courses
Arizona Daily Star, The (Tucson, AZ)
July 2, 2006
Author: Tony Davis, ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry wants to kill previously approved plans for up to seven new golf courses that would slurp groundwater.

But county officials have concluded that the water supply - not the amount of available land - is the biggest factor limiting growth, Huckelberry said.

Even a local politician gets it:

4-county forum looks into ways to handle growth
Arizona Daily Star, The (Tucson, AZ)
June 26, 2006
Author: Tony Davis, ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Pima County officials expressed severe doubts about the effectiveness of a state law requiring that all new development have a 100-year assured water supply, because of uncertainties about the availability of Colorado River water.

"I think this 100-year supply thing, it is a joke," said Pima County Supervisor Ann Day. "I am asked every week by people, 'Why are you letting all of these developments go in?' & I have to say that the state is in control of the water, and we have very little to say about water. We need help quickly."