What do you do when you run out of water? Build a fucking water park of course! Way to go Mesa AZ

:applause: :sarcasm:

http://www.kpho.com/news/14521130/detail.html

MESA, Ariz. -- Unofficial election results show Mesa voters have approved a ballot measure paving the way for construction of a multimillion-dollar water park.

Backers said the Waveyard project will revive Mesa's west side.

Developers said it will feature surfing, white water rafting, kayaking, scuba diving, snorkeling and wave surfing, as well as a resort hotel and retail space.

Opponents said the project is all wet and that it shouldn't lead to the destruction of the popular Riverview Golf Course and four adult-league softball fields.


What is wrong with you people?

Now there is an example of brilliant thinking! Whoever came up with this should be waterboarded.

:toast:

And yet last year restaurants were forbidden to serve water.

No, I'm not joking.

Do they still threaten to sell a state's share of the water to another area if they don't use it all?

If it isn't going to Mesa/Metro Phoenix, does Las Vegas and L.A. get to bid on it?

Always wondered about policies that penalized those who might wanna conserve a natural resource by selling it off to the highest bidder if the conserver doesn't waste all their share.

Vegas needs more water fountains and pretend lakes. L.A. needs to fill more pools.

It's not just the people of Mesa who are at fault.

Waiting and watching.

What, that they'll just continue to suck up all the rest of the country's water? They're already sucking the Colorado dry, they've already sucked down our country's largest aquifer to about half its size(the Ogolala, which normally supplies the Midwest with water for crops, oh well, there goes the bread basket). What's next, sucking down the Mississippi and Great Lakes.

These fucking idiots need to realize that their way of life is unsustainable and that cities in the desert are just a disaster waiting to happen.

:blush:

use close to 90% of the available surface water in AZ. Seems like cheap produce is more important to most people than sensible water management.

90 percent of AZ's agricultural water is used for ranching, which accounts for only TEN percent of AZ's agricultural production.

Produce isn't the problem. Raising cattle in the freaking Mojave is the problem, not when the only logical reasons for cattle production are: it's cool; it gets votes; and it's a tradition.

Produce is most certainly the problem, both in AZ and CA. Google Imperial Valley--they have the highest water consumption in the WORLD, something like 6 million acre feet per year and 97% used by farmers.

The farmers in the SONORAN desert in AZ use most of AZs surface water, interestingly the per capita water use has been going down, because homes have been replacing farms. Link:

Despite the rapid population growth in Arizona, groundwater consumption has fallen in recent decades as homes have replaced farms, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

It may seem counterintuitive given the population growth, but agriculture continues to consume most of the water in the Sun Belt. As farms are replaced by development, less water is used.

The report released by USGS found that farms still used four-fifths of the Southwest's water in 2000. But that was a decline from 94 percent in 1950.

The state's farms still use more water per acre than those in California, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico, the study found.

Hydrologist Alice Konieczki, who worked on the study, said the higher water use is probably the result of the arid climate, the long growing season and the loss of water through unlined canals.

http://www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcconserv/5arizwate2.html

AZ ranks second nationally in lettuce, melon, spinach, broccoli and cauliflower. All of these crops are water intensive, but the farmers grow them here because they can get three growing seasons instead of two like in traditional places like MN.

The combination of appalling ignorance and greed is only surpassed in Texas. No matter how hard it gets here, I am grateful every day that I was able to escape that hell-hole and the slime that runs it.

Now I live in Texas, and I'm loving it in comparison.

:rofl:

cities in TX that I've never been to, and everybody tells me how it really is different from the rest of that cesspool. Perhaps someday circumstances will force me to revisit that abomination of a state and fortune will place me in Austin so I can see for myself.

Right now, I can't imagine it.

...but not about what the hell they'll do when their taps only spit sand. People really are monumentally stupid.

.

:wtf:

I repeat: we ain't sending ANY water from the Great Lakes South.

Ain't happening.

Golf courses, Desert irrigation projects, WATERPARKS IN PHOENIX??...now THOSE could drain the lakes.

As to people coming to Michigan, PLEASE COME, AND WELCOME TO YOU!!!

The City of Detroit has a MARVELOUS water system that supports all of our greedy suburbs: I'd LOVE to see the less than 1 million population of Detroit soar once again, or the less than 200,000 Population of Flint rise.

We've got TONS of great empty houses. Come on up. Then we can VOTE the assholes out of state office and turn the damned state around.

but here in the Southeast we're already squabbling with our neighbors about water.

This water park is insanity.

...and we could use some more Democratic voters. The State Senate is still run by anti SCHIP, "Them DEM LIBBIES is stealin' our GUNS..." assholes.

You know who I HATE? Schumer. Him and his dumbass gun control shit lost us more votes for the Democratic Party in my district than anything else...so we get STUCK with morons like Camp, Rogers, KNOLLENBURG....

Come on up! I'll buy the beer and cook ribs on the grill.

:)

I hear ya. We need more people moving up here. With global warming, the winters aren't as bad as they were when I was a kid, and our cost of living's much cheaper.

Our lakes, by the way. Not going to bail you clowns out.

Arizona's water use down despite growth
February 2005

U.S. Water News Online

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Despite the rapid population growth in Arizona, groundwater consumption has fallen in recent decades as homes have replaced farms, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Groundwater pumping in Arizona fell 28 percent in the last 25 years of the 20th century, a 476 million gallon decline. In Maricopa County, water consumption fell 14 percent from 1985 to 2000.

In the Southwest, where population soared 250 percent from 1950 to 2000, annual water use increased only 58 percent to 20.5 trillion gallons.

It may seem counterintuitive given the population growth, but agriculture continues to consume most of the water in the Sun Belt. As farms are replaced by development, less water is used.

The report released by USGS found that farms still used four-fifths of the Southwest's water in 2000. But that was a decline from 94 percent in 1950.

The amount of irrigated farmland in Maricopa County fell 40 percent in that time.

Jim Klinker, executive secretary of the Arizona Farm Bureau, said he can see the difference when he looks out his office window in Gilbert.

"To my east is alfalfa and it's really green with all this rain,'' he said by phone. "I look out the other side of the building and it's wall-to-wall stucco and tile.''

The decline of the farm business is inevitable, he said, despite the move toward specialty crops for niche markets and other adaptations.

"It's strange for the state's largest farm organization to be talking about retiring itself out of existence, but you've got to deal with reality,'' he said. "People are coming to live in Arizona and we have a finite water supply.''

The state's farms still use more water per acre than those in California, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico, the study found.

Hydrologist Alice Konieczki, who worked on the study, said the higher water use is probably the result of the arid climate, the long growing season and the loss of water through unlined canals.

http://www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcconserv/5arizwate2.html

:kick:

I bet it's less than the golf course.

All lovely and green and sucking up our most precious resource like a sponge.

I fucking hate golf and I'm constantly being urged to take it up.

:mad:

Up north of Mesa where I live, we voted AGAINST building a jail. We are so tight fisted and short sighted up here, north of Phoenix.

The next war will be fought over water, not oil.

IIRC, Sunsplash is in Mesa. They need two? :shrug:

White water rapids in the land of dry river beds. Brilliant. :eyes:

:rofl:

:spray: :rofl:

It's like here in southern calif . They continue to build and build and build . Huge malls and tall buildings that I can't imagine what they are for .

No matter is has not rained here in years or that the roads are already packed full of cars , just build more crap .

where do they think the water will come from and all the power to light this shit up .

They call this progress , i call it insanity .

Seriously, as the southwest goes for more xeriscaping and less lawns, etc., is one water park for the people to enjoy not more water efficient than a plethora of golf courses etc?

I assume most of it recycles, how much water has to be added daily to sustain it? Point being, if it is one central park for the community to enjoy rather than watering lawns, building X number of pools, I'm wondering if any comparison has been done which will use more water?

quickly it evaporates here.

Well, that is good at least. I can see more people enjoying this than a bunch of people wearing green and yellow plaid shorts :)

You're right, totally superfluous and stupid.

aka Mormon Central.

:rofl:

:P

I love you!

:hug:

:hug:

The vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of water waste is thorough farming. Farmers need to start going to drip systems for more crops.


A: In 2000, about 346,000 million gallons per day of fresh water was withdrawn from our surface- and ground-water sources, such as rivers, lakes, reservoirs, and wells. Would you think that two uses of water, irrigation and thermoelectric-power production, would account for about 79 percent of water used in 2000? Here's the breakdown by water-use category:

Irrigation: 40 percent
Thermoelectric power: 39 percent
Public Supply: 13 percent
Industry: 5 percent
Livestock, aquaculture: less than 1 percent
Domestic (self-supplied): 1 percent
Mining: 1 percent

Link: http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/qausage.html#HDR1

Everyone grow a garden or starve?

I have lived on farms and there are ways to use less water than just flooding the shit out of everything not to mention the incredible amount of lost water through unlined canals. Drip systems especially for vineyards and orchards could save a million times more water than a little water park. Since farming takes about 40% of our water each year maybe we could cut that to 20% with better methods than irrigation? I would worry about that before worrying about one water park that will use less water than a golf course. Do you propose they get rid of all community swimming pools too?

Someone posted this below which is also an interesting read: http://www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcconserv/5arizwate2.html

'Cause they'll never run out of that. And at the present rate of aquifer depeletion, that's all that will be left in 20 years.

:rofl: good one

http://www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcconserv/5arizwate2.html


PS--the Sonoran desert is not sand like the Mohave.

For my lack of geographical knowledge. I have since educated myself.

http://www.desertusa.com/du_sonoran.html

:toast:

Sam Kinnison = "Hey Africans, do you know why your starving? Its cause you live in the fucking desert! Nothing grows there, so you will never have food to eat or water to drink. We have deserts in America, but we don't fucking live in them!"

Now we live in them and wonder why we are so thirsty.

One of his platforms (though he may have backed off) was to divert Great Lakes water to the Southwest.

As someone who lives in a Great Lakes state, I'm offended by this. My solution? STOP MOVING TO AREAS WITH NO WATER!

I wonder what kind of thought process was involved. Did parents choose this ballot measure to initiate their children into the voting process?
"Do we want a water park? What do you kids think?"
"YAAAAAYYYY!"

:eyes:

It's filled with Bush Bot Romney Republicans, except for a tiny area around Mesa Community College.

:banghead:

Their show "Wired Science" had a segment about water woes in the Phoenix and Las Vegas areas, which are the two fastest-growing cities in the country.

You'll be shocked when you see the water level and "bathtub ring" on Lake Mead:

http://www.pbs.org/kcet/wiredscience/story/71-peak_water.html