BECK: Peoria’s growth, future planning hinges on city's ability to ensure water security

Peoria’s growth and future planning hinges on our ability to ensure that our water future remains secure. 

I am proud of our council’s investment and commitment in securing our water future. To this point, we’ve allocated more resources to this effort than at any other time in our city’s history.

One of the highlights of these efforts was the formal completion of a major Reclaimed Water Pipeline that will serve as the backbone of our future water needs, allowing us to prioritize the use of reclaimed water, instead of our precious drinking water supply for turf irrigation. 

The completion of this pipeline has allowed the city to transition Paloma Park from using 39 million gallons of potable water every year, to an entirely reclaimed water supply, at 33% of the cost.

In response to our ever-present mindset of conservation, Peoria staff worked hard to develop and implement a new turf reduction program, expected to save millions of gallons of water each year. For every acre of non-programmable turf, those grassy areas in which kids are not able to play on, we are able to repurpose that space and save one million gallons of water. In total, we anticipate these efforts to save the city 30 million gallons of water per year upon completion.

That’s a smart return on investment.

As part of our long-term water strategy, we also completed the expansion of Jomax Reclamation Facility, increasing capacity from 2.25 million gallons per day to 3 million.

These actions reflect our commitment to smart, long-term growth. This is the type of growth that allows for us to attract future employment, retail, and development for our residents.

As a city, we recognize that we will only go as far as our water supply can take us. These actions underscore our prioritization of ensuring that we are prepared in every situation and always ready to meet the needs of our current and future communities, no matter the circumstance.

To learn more about Peoria’s efforts around water security, and to stay updated with future actions, please visit www.peoriaaz.gov/watersecurity.