Fluid Situation

The Tucson City Council may soon be forced to answer some difficult questions about the quality of water that Tucsonans will have to live with.

The stakes are high: Either we'll see a substantial decrease in our water quality, or a considerable hike in our water rates.

At the same time, a growing number of scientists and policymakers are warning that communities, like Tucson, that rely heavily on the Colorado River for water may not even be asking the right questions. With global-warming concerns on the rise, reports indicate that the river could have much lower flows in the future.

"We have built an unsustainable civilization in the Southwest," says Tim P. Barnett, a physicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. Barnett is also co-author of an article soon to appear in the journal Water Resources Research titled, "When Will Lake Mead Go Dry?"

Barnett believes cities like Tucson need to ask tough questions now--or risk potentially devastating consequences in the not-so-distant future.

"Currently, the outflow of the Colorado is greater than the inflow," Barnett comments in an interview. "Apparently, no one has ever looked at the way people keep the books on this river. There has been deliberate overdrafting, while minimizing climate change and infiltration and ignoring increased evaporation due to drought."

In the coming weeks, a more immediately pressing question before the City Council will deal with water quality: What level of minerals should Tucson Water be delivering to its customers?

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