AMWUA Blog
Green Infrastructure: Can It Find A Home In The Desert?
Green infrastructure is a vague name for a particular way of designing streets, sidewalks, plazas and parking lots to make better use of rainwater. Green infrastructure redirects more storm runoff into public landscaping instead of pooling on hard surfaces or rushing into underground storm-drain pipes. Its purpose is to help cool urban areas by encouraging more greenery and shade....
Jul 07 2014
Softening Water Is Tough On CitiesValley cities can treat wastewater to such a quality that it can be used to fill small fishing lakes in parks, to irrigate landscaping, and to be stored for later use in underground aquifers. This treated wastewater is aptly called reclaimed water....
Jun 23 2014
Water Shortages: The Big PictureThe drought and potential shortages of Colorado River water have everyone talking. That's good news because no one seems to pay attention to water issues if there isn't a crisis brewing. It's also the bad news because everyone--pundits, politicians and prognosticator--has an opinion, which makes it tough to determine how the pieces fit together so we can see the big picture....
Jun 16 2014
Mrs. Kelly Gets New Toilets, But Flushing Problems PersistCharlene Kelly lives on Phoenix's Westside with her daughter and a grandchild who likes to flush toilets just for the joy of it....
Jun 09 2014
Groundwater Management: Why It Still MattersIt took until June 12, 1980 for Arizona to decide it was not ok for farmers, cities, developers, and businesses to pump as much groundwater as they wanted,whenever and wherever they needed it. By that time, water users in Maricopa County were depleting 30 times the amount of groundwater that was naturally replenished through rain and snow each year....
Jun 02 2014
Myth: A Desert Garden Will Save Water and MoneyMYTH 1: A desert garden means replacing grass with ugly gravel....
May 26 2014
Storm Water: From The Streets To Your Rivers and ParksAs if you needed a good reason to pick up after your dog, here is yet one more: storm drains. Phoenix, a city of blue skies and sunshine, maintains an 895-mile storm drain system. Desert storms are few but the hard and fast rain rushes across yards, driveways, sidewalks and streets. The torrents carry away oil from dripping cars, goop from open dumpsters, fertilizers from gardens and lawns, bits o...
May 19 2014
Can Bucket Masters Save The Valley's Water?Every fourth grade scientist wants to be the Bucket Master. Who wouldn't?...
May 12 2014
Upside Of A Superfund SiteTwo companies contain and clean contaminated groundwater under the Phoenix Goodyear Airport located in the west Valley. That's not the only good news. Now both of these companies are saving the City of Goodyear $325,000 in irrigating costs each year. The companies give Goodyear enough clean water to irrigate the town's largest park and its Cactus League-baseball training complex....