Glendale, Peoria, Phoenix join forces to share water in an emergency

By Steve Stockmar
Mail |
Twitter: @stevestockmar

Almost five years ago Craig Johnson had an alarming thought. The kind that would give any city’s water services director some sleepless nights.

While serving in that role for Glendale, he got to thinking about one of the city’s three surface water treatment plants, Pyramid Peak, up north somewhat between 63rd Drive and one of the Central Arizona Project’s canals. The realization came that, should an unplanned situation arise at the plant — which it has in the past — and get serious enough, the water supply for northern Glendale could be compromised in a big way while waiting for the system to get back on line.

The light-bulb moment gave way to the reality that there is no emergency backup. Sure there are 20 million gallons of water in reserves up that way, but an unexpected shutdown that might become an extended period of time posed a real problem. He called it “a soft spot in our system.”

“Murphy’s Law. If one of these days ...,” he said, looking back.

It’s not uncommon for something foreign to get into the water system, which might cause a shutdown and repair. A few years ago he recalls when the canal itself lost a piece of its concrete siding upstream north of Lake Pleasant. It was fixable, but the issue took time to determine the cause and the right course of action. Anytime there’s a maintenance shutdown, the clock immediately starts ticking.

“We have to be prepared for everything,” Johnson said. “If there’s one thing I don’t want to do is have to call you up and say ‘Hey I can’t serve water to the citizens.’”

So he started running some models, with neighboring cities Peoria and Phoenix.

*

WHERE DOES GLENDALE’S

WATER COME FROM?

Glendale has three surface water treatment plants to serve the city. Pyramid Peak, near north Glendale, produces water from the Colorado River, while Cholla (the city’s first plant), located at Cholla Street and 47th Avenue, and Oasis, near Northern and 71st avenues, both produce water from both the Verde River and Salt River.

“That comprises about 90% of water that we serve to our residents and community,” Ron Serio, Glendale’s deputy water services director, said of the three.

As rain or snow up north gets into rivers and stored behind dams, ultimately it goes into the canal system to get delivered to the city’s plants where it’s cleaned and treated. Serio says the process, from receiving water at Oasis — the smallest of the three and pumps 12 million gallons of water a day alone — to treating it to pumping it out to residents takes about 12 to 15 hours.

If you’re wondering, he says the Colorado River’s water in general is much cleaner than water from the others.

“We measure clearness and turbidity — how clear it is,” he explained. “The Verde is actually dirtier than the Salt.”

*

HOW IS ARIZONA’S

WATER SUPPLY?

It depends who you ask. Not good for those in agriculture.

The Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) and the Central Arizona Project (CAP) issued a joint report in April 2021 on the Colorado River’s water shortage.

“We anticipate the first-ever ‘Tier 1’ shortage declaration on the Colorado River beginning in 2022,” the report correctly predicted, with a Tier 1 declared already this year. “The shortage will result in a substantial cut to Arizona’s share of the river, with reductions falling largely to central Arizona agricultural users. Water supplies for cities will not be affected and tribal supplies remain secure.”

With the Colorado River already operating in a “Tier Zero” status the past two years, Arizona had to forgo 192,000 acre-feet of its 2.8-million acre-foot annual entitlement to Lake Mead. This reduction came entirely from the CAP system. As recently as March 19, Lake Mead was showing 165 feet below its full level.

While those shortage figures sound daunting when hearing for the first time, Arizona’s water community has been more than preparing for this, literally, for decades. That diligence led to the Drought Contingency Plan for the Colorado River system in 2019.

Ag uses 72% of the state’s water, by far the biggest of the sectors (municipal use is next with 22%), and will bear the brunt of the shortage in Arizona’s cut of Colorado River water share. The reduction for ag users figures to be as much as 65% of its Colorado River-given water supply.

Anticipated agreements, however, already have a plan in place to share resources to mitigate the impacts of the reductions. In the plan, some are committing to leaving extra water in Lake Mead to reduce future risks, while others are sharing water with the most severely impacted of the state’s water users, according to ADWR. Despite mitigation efforts for those farmers, ag entities in impacted areas ultimately may have to reduce acreage by 30 to 40%, ADWR Director Tom Buschatzke said in May 2021.

Perhaps most reassuringly, ADWR also reports that Arizona has stored nearly 3 trillion gallons of water for future use. That is the equivalent of serving the city of Phoenix for 30 years.

“Arizona’s population has grown steadily over the years, however through significant investments in water conservation and infrastructure and the reuse of water, our water use is essentially the same as it was more than half a century ago,” the department states on its website, arizonawaterfacts.com.

*

PARTNERSHIP PROJECT

Back to that “soft spot” at the Pyramid Peak plant serving Glendale.

Craig Johnson worked with colleagues in both Phoenix and Peoria to run models that would interconnect water supply sources between all three cities in the event of an emergency.

Cholla and Oasis have backup sources secured. They take care of each other if there’s an issue, plus a series of nearby wells is available. That sort of coverage helps residents south of the Arizona Canal in case of an extended issue.

Not so much up north in Glendale.

“If we lose Pyramid Peak, the only recourse we have is what’s in the reservoirs for 36 to 48 hours,” Johnson explained. “So if we have a catastrophic issue going on at the (Pyramid) plant, and in 36 to 48 hours if we don’t have it fixed, then we have an issue with water supply.”

The “Interconnect Project for Emergency Flow,” as it’s called, allows Glendale to have two interconnects with the city of Phoenix and one with the city of Peoria. One of the Phoenix connections is close to Pyramid Peak itself and will easily feed into the Glendale system if called upon. Glendale’s connection with Peoria is closer to the Jomax Water Facility for the same sort of support, and vice versa.

“We’ve got a number of options for us to use if for some reason we have a catastrophic failure at Pyramid Peak and we don’t the water supply,” Johnson explained. “We have the interconnects from Phoenix and from Peoria.”

It took some time to run the models, then Glendale approached Washington, D.C. for federal money to help expedite the cause.

Major Arizona priorities were included in the $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill for fiscal year 2022 that President Joe Biden signed into law this month. Among them was $2 million to the city of Glendale for the water supply interconnects, through Congressionally Directed Spending requests made by Senators Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema.

On the local level, intergovernmental agreements were next. Glendale’s IGA with Phoenix passed more than a month ago, and an IGA with Peoria will pass in the next month or so. In the end, ownership breaks down to 56% to Glendale and 44% to Peoria, according to Johnson.

“It’s not a big project but it makes a big statement,” he said, emphasizing the collaboration between communities.

Now it’s that matter of tying up the final IGA, and then waiting for those dollars to reach the city so they can get to work.

“For $3 million or less, you can get these interconnects and get the three cities all connected,” Johnson said. “And I can sleep better at night knowing that I’ve got extra supplies of water. The water services guys, we’re always looking for that extra bucket of water.”

Steve Stockmar
News Editor | Sun Life Magazine & Arts & Entertainment YourValley.net
@stevestockmar

sstockmar@iniusa.org

Meet Steve
Steve Stockmar joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2017, and has been an Arizona journalist for almost 30 years. He serves as editor of Sun Life Magazine and contributes to West Valley communities where he focuses mostly on arts & culture, education, and profiles of neighbors making a difference.

Community: Every season Steve serves as a “buddy” with the Miracle League of Arizona in Scottsdale, has volunteered his time with Family Promise in Glendale, and previously served on the Ghostlight Theatre board in Sun City West.

Education: Graduated from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff with a Journalism major and English minor.

Random Fact: Steve once won a 50-player live Texas Hold ’Em poker tournament.

Hobbies: Anguishing over his beloved Chicago Cubs and Bears; listening to Beatles and Grateful Dead music.