Arizona Water Shortage

Jeffrey Trepak

English 102 Paper 2

March 7, 2005

Keep your head above the water but don't drink it

Fact: Arizona is in a 10-year drought. Fact: The city of Phoenix has a water problem that has nothing to do with lack thereof. A hundred years ago or more humans would just drink from a river or stream, but today we need purified, cleansed, and filter water. We do, as a state have a water treatment system in place but the faculties periodically need maintenance and must be shut down to receive it. The Water Department and their puppet master Frank Fairbanks the city mangers have been playing Russian roulette with the citizen of Phoenix. The bet you ask, will the shut down of facilities due to maintenance leave the citizens of Phoenix with a contaminated water system. We learn the answer to that question on the 25 of January the city council and water department both lost that bet. The water supply was contaminated, water had to be boiled to make in safe and long showers were not advisable. How can we as voters keep this from happening again? The short answer is building another water treatment facility, for the details read on.

When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.

Benjamin Franklin

On Tuesday, January 25, Ginger D. Richardson and Judi Villa of the Arizona Republic reported the water supply for the metro Phoenix area had something of a hiccup.

Phoenix's 1.4 million residents, as well as residents in the western half of Paradise Valley, were encouraged Tuesday to boil their tap water until at least noon Wednesday, and also to limit what water they do use Last night, a safety valve notified officials that the water coming from the Val Vista treatment plant contained 2.1 parts per billion, more than double the federal safety guideline. (1)

By means of water, we give life to everything.

Koran, 21:30

What we have seen in late January has proved that the city of Phoenix needs one more water treatment facility. The tax revenue that will be lost if a water crisis every happen again will pay for the building of the new facility. The water department has known of this problem for years but has chosen not to rectify the hazard. City officials chalked up the high levels of sediment in the water to Mother Nature, but they acknowledge that a series of decisions by water officials could have worsened the problem. (Villa, Fehr-Snyder, 1) The water department knew and Frank Fairbanks knew that maintenance was required on rotating bases, on each facility and chooses to take two offline during the "winter" or "rainy months". Two other water treatment plants are shut down due to routine maintenance and another is off line because of water damage, leaving only one of the cities five water treatment plants producing water at full capacity. ( Richardson, Villa, 1) If there had been a back up facility to take up the slack when the Verde