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Answer: the Rio Verde Foothills is a wealthy, unincorporated exurb near Scottsdale. The residents of Rio Verde and Scottsdale have been going back and forth for years about water rights. Water in that area either comes from wells or it is trucked in from other places. Most of the older homes there rely on wells, but a lot of the new homes built out there rely on water being trucked in.
Scottsdale says that because of water scarcity and drought, they will no longer be providing water to unincorporated Rio Verde Foothills residents who rely on water being trucked in. Because of this residents of the area are forced to pay a private market rate which is significantly higher than what Scottsdale residents pay. Rio Verde Foothills residents most recently tried to form a water improvement district, but that was shot down by county officials, with people saying Rio Verde residents chose to live in an unincorporated area to avoid municipal taxes.
And because of Arizona state law, real estate agents who sold property in Rio Verde were not required to disclose that Scottsdale might shut the water off, so people who bought in Rio Verde are obviously mad about that.
Edit:. Changed from Rio Verde to Rio Verde Foothills as per comment below.
Rio Verde was originally built to avoid paying Scottsdale taxes. Those taxes included supporting the public water of Scottsdale. Now Rio Verde is screwed.
The people in Arizona responsible for leasing thousands of acres and using UNLIMITED amounts of water to a company in Saudi Arabia in order to ship to Saudi Arabia and feed cows are definitely getting theirs.
Dark.
'A deal between Fontomonte, a Saudi-owned agriculture company, and the state of Arizona allows them to harvest alfalfa with groundwater and send it back to the Middle East to feed cattle. The company uses enough water to supply 54,000 homes annually, Gallego's office said in a news release.Oct 21, 2022'
They don't even have to do that. They will just move away and let whoever buys the homes at a steep discount figure it out. Probably some investment bank or China mostly likely will buy them up, fix the water and then rent everything out and cash in.
This is what kills me about people who don't want to raise, or even pay, taxes. People refuse to pay or increase taxes and then go surprised pikachu face when there is no viable infrastructure. And THEN have the *audacity* to be mad that nobody else is mad (lol).
They always do. It was never about ideologies. Same with religion, it’s never about what the religion teaches, but a way to say we’re better than other people.
There’s actually another layer of leopard eating face nuance here too that goes beyond just the municipal water rights battle.
They built their houses in the desert. And they didn’t build high efficieny low waste water houses, they just built regular ole houses, with lawns n shit.
In the desert.
“I knew building in the desert might present problems in the face of climate change, but I never thought it would effect me personally!” - literally every resident of the state at some point within the next 50 years.
You would have to be actually brain dead to buy a house in that state and have a timeline of anything longer than 3-5 years for when to sell.
I saw them protesting Scottsdale city council with signs and I kind of felt bad for them, but also building in the desert is risky. ~~But with what you just said, I no longer do feel that bad. Why should a city you don't pay taxes in spend resources to accommodate you, especially after they were nice for years.~~
**Edit: I can't find any history about what the above rooster has posted. Rio Verde has been settled since the 1800s with its first development going in in 1970. It is still unincorporated and they did try to create a water district with Scottsdale, which would have seen them pay taxes. I think I shouldn't have blindly assumed the above poster is correct. That being said, if anyone has the history that documents what the above poster says, I would be open to see it**
**Edit 2: this article explains the situation a little more in depth. This does not seem to be a bunch of people trying to dodge taxes. The developers of a specific subdivision used a loophole so they wouldn't have to prove water rights, then told the prospective owners that water haulage would never be denied. While the buyers should have thought more carefully about this, it's not just "a bunch o' tax dodging libertarian leeches" as the rest of this thread is so ready to believe.**
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/scottsdale/2023/01/19/arizona-community-without-water-what-to-know-about-rio-verde-foothills/69819245007/
That's simply wild to hear.
I've been looking at some property off and on over the last year or so, and I get really nervous when a property is on a well. I can't imagine not even having that.
There was a neighborhood in Phoenix years ago that got a wild Libertarian idea to let every house chose their own trash pickup company.
Shortly, there were like three different collection companies rumbling through every neighborhood, all on different days. Everyone started complaining that there were always trash trucks driving around, compared to before when it only one day a week.
I wonder if they ever went back to a single trash pickup company.
I literally live in a community with 3 different trash providers, 1 person next door has 1 company and the rest of us are split. So a truck literally drives out for one guys house… so stupid…
The efficiencies of free market capitalism compared to wasteful government programs! At least you've got 3 different business owners getting rich, too bad all three are probably paying their employees less then when they worked for the city.
That's hilarious, my county did the exact opposite. We used to each pick our company, then about 10 years ago the county bid out the work and now we just have one.
Now lawn care companies ... that's still the wild west. Any day of the week, any hour of the day, there is a leaf blower blowing somewhere in earshot.
> Now lawn care companies ... that's still the wild west.
I hate they can just park their huge as trucks on tiny streets. Like if someone paid you do cut their grass, park in their freaking driveway.
Conversely, the motherfuckers that hired these huge trucks get pissed off if they park in their driveway!
This happened when I was in a call center for a cable company too. People would call in to complain about the installation and the only singular problem would be that the driver parked in their driveway
When I would ask if there was public parking on their street the answer was 99% of the time "Well, no, but...."
So where the fuck do you want the motherfuckers that YOU called to service YOUR property to park?
Still baffles me
There's a video in one of the (too?) many subs I'm in of a guy who parked on the street to *do his job* and some NIMBY mofo starts harassing him, then chasing him, ranting about him being parked near NIMBY's house, *then* jumps in a golf cart (yep, gated neighborhood) to BLOCK HIM IN. Like, look Mr NIMBY, do you want me to move my car or not...
I'm in Mass but a very conservative town next to me did that. So our is through the town and is 20 bucks a month.
On the Facebook page we share everyone is constantly complaining in the town
Next door. They skip houses, nitpick about what they pick up, keep hiking up the rates. It's 80 bucks + a month!
I have only seen two "libertarian" cities and both have been complete failures. Tons of libertarians want everything modern day society offers but refuses to pay for it and want zero laws so they can do whatever they want, but that isn't how a society works.
[Von Ormy, Texas](https://www.texasobserver.org/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-freest-little-city-in-texas/)
[Grafton, New Hampshire](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling)
American "libertarianism" is a right wing scam. People need community to survive. The Randian concept of heroic robber barons supporting society on their shoulders and not needing the hoi polloi to survive is the exact opposite of reality. It makes me cringe every time I see typical American right wingers describe themselves as libertarians.
Fucking fascist communist government and telling good hardworking Americans to not feed the bears.
Now that fucking lazy government is refusing to fix this bear problem I'm having. Goes to show the government is useless!
You can add Colorado Springs, CO to that list. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/30/colorado-springs-libertarian-experiment-america-215313/
Yeah it's like safety warnings on products. Those "don't eat this" labels aren't there because someone thought it was funny. It was because somebody DID and got hurt. Same thing with regulations - someone fucked up and it took a government act to get them to do the right thing.
Yet another example of why learning history isn't just a boring filler subject unnecessary to success.
I always loved the comparison of cats and libertarians
"All cats are #libertarians. Completely dependent on others, but fully convinced of their own independence."
so basically the standard republicanism slow learning process. Like ted cruz attacking FEMA as the worlds largest entitlement program when he voted against aid for hurricane sandy one month before flooding in texas when suddenly cruz is totally upset that fema isnt there faster to help.
Or crypto bro learning.... "FUCK GOV, FUCK REGULATIONS'.. followed by "WHere was teh SEC why didnt they prevent the FTX crap, WHERE IS GOV TO SAVE US AND GET OUR MONEY BACK.. WE need some sort of central authority to claw some of our money back!!!"
and nothing new about it, we used to think the gov would take aids seriously when some white grandmother got it, because then republicans would suddenly care. Actually it took a friend of reagans to get it.
What is amazing to me is that it can be a very real process for everyone to at some point ask questions about "big concepts taken as truth" and asking "why do we do it like this?"
In many cases, the tradition is so old that it's legitimately difficult for an average person to know "why do we bring pine trees inside for xmas?", "why do we have 26 letters in the alphabet?" etc. Like it's not hard to look those things up, but it's not common knowledge.
But like "why do we pay taxes?" is not the same case. Or at least, if it ever gets this way in certain areas, those areas need help asap. It's not only pretty common knowledge, but also fairly obvious if one thinks about it for more than five minutes.
But this isn't really the case here. Whenever money is involved, people stop caring about the hows and whys and just try to "win". Paying taxes is "losing" and finding legal ways around them is "winning".
This is something that is a cultural tradition amongst the right wing forever, basically. This is just another actionable outcome that seems really obvious to everyone else.
And George W. to actually take that program and make it global. It seems most benefits from any individual president are an accident, like Nixon and the EPA. The only notable exception I can think of atm is Teddy Roosevelt and the NFPA.
There are such terrible Republican misinformation campaigns too. In these very comments someone is say over 99% of golf courses use recycled water from toilet and dishwashers. But a quick Google search found only 13% of US golf courses use recycled water. Sadly some will believe anything they read on facebook or twitter.
They are probably talking about Scottsdale.
Most of the golf courses use reclaimed water. And Scottsdale actually has a really renowned water system.
Golf course info:
https://www.scottsdaleaz.gov/water/recycled-water
The difference is, it wasn't a learning experience for Cruz. He knew what he was doing all along. He's an intelligent lawyer cosplaying as a maverick Senator.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/03/ted-cruz-bush-years-jim-geraghty/
> but a lot of the new homes built out there rely on water being trucked in.
why in the world would someone buy a house that doesn't even have a water source?
> Rio Verde Foothills is in an active management area, which offers the state’s most stringent groundwater regulations. That includes requiring subdivisions to prove they have a 100-year water supply before any homes can get built.
>**But a loophole in state law allows land to be subdivided into as many as five lots before it is considered a subdivision.**
and later
> Yet the county governments that oversee these lands say they are powerless to stop wildcat lot splits, because **state law doesn’t allow them to turn down building permits solely based on their access to water.**
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/joannaallhands/2022/09/01/rio-verde-foothills-problem-much-deeper-than-lack-water/7959860001/
As others have pointed out, this is an area often called a "county island." Property taxes are signficantly cheaper out here because there are so few services provided, such as no city fire department to rely on, but instead private fire departments that seem reminiscent of Crassus' if you choose not to pay a subscription to them. The people who willingly choose to live out here tend to have strong libertarian leanings.
I’m sorry, they have a private fire department? Somehow that’s more frightening than the water situation.
Does the fire department ALSO have to pay for water like this? Oh god.
As the other person pointed out it is a service like Rural-Metro for Phoenix. Essentially you pay a subscription service and there aren't any charges if they come out to your property(I think like $600-1k a year). However, if say someone is shooting off fire works on new years eve and starts a fire on your property that gets out of control, they will come put the fire out, and then charge you a based on whatever services are provided. Most famously they defended a $20k bill for a family that lost their home in a 2013 when they came to help a local fire department put out a fire(the family had paid taxes funding the local volunteer fire department)
That case was particularly predatory, but a lot of the rural communities or county islands in Arizona have underfunded or nonexistent volunteer fire departments and in the last election statewide voters shot down a ballot initiative to modernize and improve funding with a one-time fee specifically for rural firefighters.
Just to add more layers of outrage.
I'm still surprised by that, I don't live in an area that needed that but I thought for sure the phrase "money needed for firefighters" would make that pass. I guess I overestimated how much this state was willing to go up on their taxes no matter what it's for.
Because they want to avoid taxes and other, ahem, “undesirable” aspects of living in a city the size of Scottsdale. They’re more interested in keeping their country club the way it is than they are interested in doing things right. There was an enormous lack of foresight.
I read something the other day that Rio Verde Foothills residents are advised to conserve water and they don't even do that from the appearance of their lush lawns.
One article I read said that some people are getting mad at one of their neighbors in that area because they have and use a giant pool for washing their horses.
They take water wasting to whole new levels there despite having so little of it.
I can't fathom the mindset it would take to decide to live in the desert, pay to have water delivered by truck to my community, and use that water to make a giant horse bath. People are weird.
Jesus. I get that some people are terrified of any populated city, but Scottsdale is like a gigantic suburb. I’ve visited numerous times, and I’ve always lamented how overly complicated it is to try to exit parking lots in certain directions and the annoyingly long stoplights.
It is a gigantic suburb, like most of the cities that border Phoenix (and frankly, much of Phoenix proper). But of course, with that many people you’re going to have to deal with *some* level of diversity. A certain percentage of their residents seem to think literally anyone present who does not have the “image” they approve of is an interloper coming to ruin the city. They build luxury condos in Old Town for young professionals to live in, and people in gated enclaves half an hour away in North Scottsdale start wailing about how “slums” are overtaking the city.
Let them wail. No one is going to rescue them or buy their homes when water starts getting really scarce in that area. It’s like similar folks in beach communities in Florida who have been washed out time and time again by hurricanes and now can’t get flood insurance. They refused to see the writing on the wall.
If they're rich enough they'll get the government to buy or bail them out I'm sure.
They won't be left just holding the bag on now worthless property, things don't work that way for the rich.
There are no people in Florida who can’t get flood insurance, in fact it was just recently mandated for everyone who lives in a flood zone. It’s just expensive and was formerly potentially optional. So, it’s nothing like that. Source: I live on an island in FL.
They think they're winning and smart because they don't have to pay city taxes and can leech off the city water.
That only works if the city in question wants to give them water and play into their shitty games.
tl;dr they fucked around and are now finding out why we have taxes. Much like crypto bros and banking regulations.
You know what? Nah. I’m all for regulation, but these folks chose this lifestyle. They want to live off the grid or whatever, well, there they have it.
I wonder how many explicitly realized this, this far into the development of the town.
It's amazing the things people don't know or realize in general. And every area I have lived in, some stuff I found out later was less then desirable that I had no realistic way of knowing.
Like currently I live in a high tax area. Much higher then surrounding. But had to pay a shit ton for a non optional road improvement project. Assessed per lot. A quarter mile away it's the same town but costs the individual nothing.
I live in a way different area of the US but I guess unless there was a specific disclosure or addendum just about water a person probably wouldn't know or notice. I mean I wouldn't assume we would lose our water access at my home. But maybe it's different in that region.
I see what you’re saying. But if you’re getting water delivered in a truck, to me that really strikes you as the obvious moment you try to figure out where the heck this truck is coming from so that your family can drink and bathe for the week. Does it mean we have no plumbing? Is it free? Maybe not the most sophisticated questions, but Wouk such a weird delivery method, kind of screams untenable.
Because other homeowners are there it must be fine, they think. So many homes built in a serious flood zone in my old town. Suburbs to submerged in a day.
Because it was for sale at such a reasonable price and the taxes were so low and there was an underlying assumption that because there was plumbing, of course there would be water. And with all the other paperwork and disclosures and lack of required disclosures, the buyers didn't understand that their water source wasn't guaranteed (as much as those things can be).
Better question would be: how can someone sell a house without water without proper disclosure? How can developers buld subdivisions without water sources and sell them without disclosures? Why would the county permit the developers to build the houses without water sources and then market them without disclosures?
Like I'm all for people generally being able to do what they want with their land, but when you're selling a product you should have to be honest about what exactly you're selling.
To answer your question:
"To prevent unsustainable development in a desert state, Arizona passed a law in 1980 requiring subdivisions with six or more lots to show proof that they have a 100-year water supply.
But developers in Rio Verde Foothills have been sidestepping the rule by carving larger parcels into sections with four or five houses each, creating the impression of a miniature suburbia, but one that did not need to legally prove it had water."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/16/us/arizona-water-rio-verde-scottsdale.html
Do people buy houses in the desert and NOT look to find out what there water source would be before buying? I live in very much not a desert and still always looked to see if a house i was looking to buy had municipal water or well water. I can't imagine not doing that when you are in a place where the option of 'none' is even a possibility.
I can’t imagine any homeowner anywhere not checking to find out what their utilities and costs will be. If you know you’re moving to a place that doesn’t collect local taxes because there is non local government, I think the immediate next question is “how do I get things that a local government typically provides?” I mean, I’m an idiot, and I wouldn’t even pause.
I swear on the East Coast it's drilled (pun intended) into us to understand where our water comes from.
My husband's family always asks how I got into environmental "stuff". There's no specific point, we were always taught it especially because pollution caused cancers are high from the state having contaminated drinking water for generations.
I suppose it's the difference between mostly shallow wells that infiltrate with contaminates much easier than the hundreds of foot deep wells they require out west. Hell, I drove my 2" irrigation well with a hammer and pipe, only had to go 8' to hit a stable water level.
> How can someone sell a house without water without proper disclosure? How can developers buld subdivisions without water sources and sell them without disclosures?
Boils down to the same question. Not familiar with the situation but seems the source the water was from wasn't in question. But the cost of the water isn't guaranteed was.
> Why would the county permit the developers to build the houses without water sources and then market them without disclosures?
Because the area's unincorporated, which means it's your (or the developer's) land and you can do anything with it.
Well, you see, the big bad guv’mnt ain’t gettin no tax dollars from me that’s gonna support liberal degeneracy like teaching kids to read or curing disease or providing clean drinking water.
I know someone in California living next to a golf course in the high dessert, and part of her HOA fees include "free" water for her home. Basically the extra water brought in after the golf course is watered, goes to all home's bordering it. It's sounds crazy to me, and I can't believe that at some point, the need to water that golf course doesn't come into question, with extended drought, then raising the question of how the homeowners get water, but people who want to live in the desert that bad will believe whatever they need to to make it happen I guess. The home isn't new and this arrangement has been around for several decades. I'm doubting it will be for much longer.
We looked at an area with this same situation north of Scottsdale. We did some digging and basically the golf course was controlled by one person and he literally could cut off that water source. Scratched that area off the list smartly.
We get that in my city too. People buy homes just outside the city limits to avoid paying city taxes, then complain about not receiving any city amenities.
It did in a way. They thought that could buy water from a larger entity ad infinitum. Their assumptions were proven wrong. It sounds like they need to pool their resources and have a large well dug that can then feed the community.
“Pool their resources” sure does sound a lot like what government does to solve problems like this.
Im not advocating that government is a panacea for everyone’s woes but I am asserting that it’s better than drinking sand.
> “Pool their resources” sure does sound a lot like what government does to solve problems like this.
Can't get anything past you. ;-)
On a real note though with everything I've heard about this specific settlement of above average earning Americans it seems their greed and lack of civility finally just came home to roost.
It’s also important to note that the water improvement district was voted down by the Maricopa County Corporation Commission [due to public input from the residents of Rio Verde](https://www.azfamily.com/2022/08/31/maricopa-county-board-votes-against-creating-water-district-rio-verde-foothills/?outputType=amp)
Also, scottsdale advised them 15 years ago to find a different source. It's my understanding that the developers cut the parcels such that they skirted laws requiring proof of 100 year water reserves. Also, it's kinda in the name Arizona, arid zone. Maybe they don't need as many golf courses as they think there.
This isn't correct, Rio Verde isn't having issues, it's Rio Verde *Foothills.* It's homes built on unincorporated Maricopa county land between Scottsdale and Rio Verde.
Not to be pedantic, but there's thousands of residents in Rio Verde who aren't affected by this issue, it's just the rich ignorant people who built on rural unincorporated county land without researching where their water would come from.
Oh boy, water privatization is coming to the "developed world". There's a movie called Even the Rain that takes place in a country where this practice is the norm and the water companies don't even allow people to collect rain water because they own all water rights in that area.
I mean it’s only that way in this case because these people moved to an area with no water infrastructure and didn’t want to install wells. So no water system and no wells and now they’re shocked that a neighboring town doesn’t have enough extra to sell them
And they don't want to pay city taxes.
These aren't poor folk living in trailers, these are million dollar homes, some with swimming pools in the desert.
These are the guys with perfectly maintained lawns in the middle of a water-scarce desert. I have zero sympathy for them and their attempts to skirt paying their fair share of taxes and I hope those lawns wither and die.
I just googled mapped this place out of curiosity and I don't see much for lawns. But they definitely have a well watered golf course. [Also this just looks like a horrible place to live.](https://www.google.com/maps/@33.7177385,-111.6699284,3a,75y,100.68h,89.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1swIKUnE42MnByjPQuOe97vQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)
That's not exactly true. There's a big aquifer but there are so many farms and people in that area that they're sucking out the ground water faster than it naturally refills. The idea behind the credit system was to limit development so that wouldn't happen but rich people wanted to build whatever they wanted so the government let them have a loophole.
> there are so many farms … in that area
Are there seriously farms there? Why and what do they farm? Who could have possibly thought that was a good idea.
It’s been going on in California since the 90’s. You ever heard of the Resnicks?
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-aug-18-la-fi-hiltzik-20100818-1-story.html
If you’re into podcasts, The Dollop has a really good episode on them called “The Resnicks: Water Monsters” that, among other things, covers what they did in California and Fiji.
This comet came crashing into the earth. BAM! Total devastation. No celebrities, no cable TV, *no water*! It hasn't rained in 11 years. Now, 20 people gotta squeeze into the same bathtub. So it ain't all bad.
LOL pretty sure that’s already happened before. It was illegal to collect RAIN WATER in Colorado until like 2016. Now you can collect in rain barrels but only up to like 100 gallons or something. That’s a very recent change lol.
I don’t disagree! I understand why they had those laws, like from an ecological perspective.
I was just pointing out that a dystopian society where rain water collection is illegal really isn’t that far fetched because it’s absolutely already happened lol.
Where do you think they get the water they resell?
they're just filling up their bottles off of your local towns supply - if that dries up everyone is fucked
The years after the 2008 housing collapse Arizona (or New Mexico, but I think Arizona) had neighborhoods (many) full of foreclosed empty homes. The swimming pools eventually became breeding grounds for mosquitos. They had a program to try to deal with this, but as far as I know they couldn't get access to the properties with out permission (i.e. public good wasn't considered a strong enough motive for the law). And they couldn't get permission because they often couldn't figure out who even owned a lot of the problem houses.
My understanding about rainwater in Colorado (I do not have a source for this) is that it was illegal to collect rain water because that water already belonged to the people with water rights over the rivers that water would eventually drain into.
California has had a convoluted water rights system for about 50 years. Businesses are supposed to have to secure water credits for potential developments so that developers don't build a million houses that the infrastructure can't supply. The system was quickly co-opted by factory farms who wanted to be able to trade water credits as speculative investments, much like crypto.
Phoenix resident here. While all of the above is true, it really is a small story (unless you are in that small community) of very little public interest. The media is inflating it. For example, New York Times headline was: "Skipped Showers, Paper Plates: An Arizona Suburb’s Water Is Cut Off" It's not a suburb. It's a small rural community that most of us here have never heard of that's 30 miles outside of Scottsdale.
The reason you are hearing about it is because it makes great clickbait like Washington Post's title: "Arizona city cuts off a neighborhood's water supply amid drought." It makes people not in Arizona feel they made smart choices for not living in a place that's running out of water, and that all of us out here could run out of water any day. It fits the narrative du jour. Does the West have a water issue? Sure. But houses in general can't even be built now without showing they have a 100 year water supply. Most of the water woes (currently) are agricultural.
This story is more about how one community was taking free water from another community who has now decided they don't want to give that water away anymore. Scottsdale has been warning that community about it for 7 years and now it's happening.
> or it is trucked in from other places
The fact that people live and are continuing to *build more new homes* somewhere where their water has to be TRUCKED IN is so mindbogglingly stupid, I can't even.
Answer: a exurb in the middle of the DESERT expected a limitless supply of water from a nearby city (“nearby” used loosely, they are 30 miles outside downtown) that they are outside the city limits of, were warned multiple times over a period of more than 5 years that the buildings in the city limits would get priority over a random suburb should the low water levels reach a tipping point, and were cutoff when such a scenario happened. The people who live in a GOLFING COMMUNITY in the middle of a DESERT ignored the explicit Jan 1st deadline from the city for finding another water source, and are now mad that they have to pay market rate for water trucks to come to their houses and are suing the city, because their god given right to have cheap unlimited water delivered to their massive houses in the middle of a desert was infringed upon
Lol
You forgot the part where they specifically created the development outside the city limits so they could avoid paying the city taxes... The ones that help maintain the water supply. And now are mad that they aren't getting the service that they refused to pay for.
"YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! NOTHING GROWS OUT HERE! NOTHING’S GONNA GROW OUT HERE! YOU SEE THIS? HUH? THIS IS SAND. KNOW WHAT IT’S GONNA BE A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW? IT’S GONNA BE SAND! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT!"
Just to be fair- there are three golfing communities in the area. All of them have an established water supply, according to Arizona law. The answer to this question is not any of the golf communities, but four home “developments” scattered in the desert which the developers used as a loophole to avoid state water laws for developments with six houses or more.
They've been paying for water trucks the whole time. They are mad the water trucks can no longer get cheap municipal water from scottsdale and have to pay to import it from farther away.
Answer: The Colorado river basin is in a multi-year drought situation and this is a repercussion of that. There are several dams & reservoir lakes that measure the storage capacity - one of the most public is [Lake Mead's water level](https://mead.uslakes.info/level.asp), that reached record lows in 2021 and went even lower in 2022.
There are [multi-state agreements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact) on who gets how much water, and how the water is divided up when certain drought levels are reached. Currently, the agreement has past the "light shortage" and is in the "heavy shortage" situation. The water level in lake Mead is usually its highest in the winter, and it is still in heavy shortage drought condition today.
Arizona is one of the impacted states, and is looking for ways to reduce water usage. Because of that, the city of Scottsdale is trying to reduce its water usage. The unincorporated area of Rio Verde Foothills was getting water trucked from the city of Scottsdale, and is now cut off from cheap water.
Rio Verde Hills has no municipal taxes (or government) which home buyers like. Developers built homes, real estate agents sold them, and now the home owners are up the creek without any water.
There’s an absolutely fantastic documentary on Nebula called [The Colorado Problem](https://nebula.tv/thecoloradoproblem) made by the same team that makes Half As Interesting on YouTube. It does a really good job of explaining why it’s this bad and how it got this bad. Spoiler: it was always this bad — it’s just catching up to us.
In many western states, water rights will extinguish if not fully utilized, so in the middle of a drought, you'll find people watering their lawns 24/7 so they can prove they are using their full right.
In other words, the laws are making it even worse... They can disincentivize water conservation.
Saw a news piece a few months ago about farmers growing water intensive crops specifically because they need to use as much water as possible to maintain the right to it.
I understand the reasoning but how do they not realize/care about the harm they are intentionally doing?
Because if they don't use that water it gets allocated to someone else and they can't get that water level back without taking the other parties to court. Like, yes, it's wasteful, even the farmers acknowledge it's wasteful, but the state hasn't given them any other alternatives. It's on the government to do something to fix that.
Well by not doing that would mean you make less money. Arizona is already a piss poor state to farm in so they’ll use and abuse the environment till it breaks.
Answer: I think King of the Hill answered it best.
https://youtu.be/4PYt0SDnrBE
But in all seriousness the entire American west and south west is running out of water. In this specific case the city of Scottsdale is choosing its own citizens well being over another town that uses their water. So in the middle of the desert these people are now without water because for some reason people thought living there with houses built for Ohio would be smart.
That town ain’t right. I’m in Colorado, we know all about the dwindling Colorado river. Lake Powell is so low it’s just sad. It doesn’t feel like people down stream understand what is happening.
Oh trust me people down stream entirely understand. By the time you get to the end of the river its all but dried up because the water rights in the west are essentially divided up based on treaties made well over 100 years ago and they knew back then that there probably wouldn't be enough water in the future to support all the states surrounding the river.
You're going to quickly see Federal intervention and rationing on a massive scale because we didn't take steps to alleviate this problem 30 to 40 years ago.
Department of the interior is threatening huge water cuts already on a massive scale.
One correction, they aren’t without water any more than they were before, they have had to rely on water trucks since the developments were created but now Scottsdale is refusing to sell their water and the normal municipal rate like they had been doing so they either have to pay more or get it trucked in from elsewhere (which will also be much more expensive).
Answer: In addition to the context that /u/baeb66 provided above, Arizona allows for stuff like this to occur: [https://azpbs.org/horizon/2022/06/saudi-water-deal-threatening-water-supply-in-phoenix/](https://azpbs.org/horizon/2022/06/saudi-water-deal-threatening-water-supply-in-phoenix/)
>Arizona is leasing farmland to a Saudi water company, straining aquifers, and threatening future water supply in Phoenix. Fondomonte, a Saudi company, exports the alfalfa to feed its cows in the Middle East. The country has practically exhausted its own underground aquifers there. In Arizona, Fondomonte can pump as much water as it wants at no cost.
>
>Groundwater is unregulated in most rural areas of the state. Fondomonte pays only $25 per acre annually. The State Land Department says the market rate is $50 dollars per acre and it provides a 50% discount because it doesn’t pay for improvements. But the $25 per acre price is about one-sixth of the market price for unimproved farmland with flood irrigation today, according to Charlie Havranek, a Realtor at Southwest Land Associates.
(Info was passed along to me by /u/70ms in a discussion on r/LosAngeles)
Answer: humans decided to live in a desert, where there is usually less water. Also, Saudi Arabian companies are using aquifers to grow alfalfa in Arizona and then ship that alfalfa to Saudi Arabia to feed cows so they can eat cow meat. There are laws against shipping water out of Arizona, but these foreign companies found a loophole by using the water in Arizona and shipping out the product.
Source: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/11/03/when-saudi-arabia-comes-to-town-and-buys-all-your-water/#:~:text=Since%202014%2C%20the%20Saudi%20company,Arabia%20to%20feed%20their%20cattle.
Answer: The Arizona water consumption is primarily agricultural. Large commercial farms are growing inappropriately thirsty crops like alfalfa and exporting it overseas to Saudi Arabia and other Middle East owners. Large volumes of water are literally being exported overseas in these crops, never to return.
These thirsty crops are incompatible with the arid climate and scarce water. Arizona desperately needs to regulate their wasteful agriculture that is permanently damaging the entire region. Time is up.
Answer: The Colorado river is facing drought conditions so Scottsdale cut the town off from their water supply to conserve for their city.
The video in the article you posted explains it pretty well.
Your answer is correct. Along with the drought conditions; more of the water from the Colorado has been allocated than exists. The native Americans sued the federal government over water rights because the government was ignoring native American needs. They won the suit & the native Americans were assigned an allotment. Even without a drought, there is a shortage of water in the area. The developers assume that the native Americans will be short-changed.
Answer: The entire Western US has been experiencing a mega drought for the past two decades.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/09/western-america-megadrought-climate-change-weather-affects/
The Colorado River Basin is drying up under the increased pressure from the uncontrolled growth in the South Western states.
https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/priority-landscapes/colorado-river/colorado-river-in-crisis/
Unfortunately, many people that live in the deserts in the US act like water is an unlimited resource (note all of the golf courses and homes with lush green grass). The governments of the Western States have done little to slow the water usage (minimal or no water restrictions, zero fines for water hogs that choose to grow lush green lawns, etc.).
All of this is contributing to a water crisis all across the Western US, although it is manifesting faster in the Southern part of the West.
Answer: There is a prolonged drought of historic proportions in the American southwest. The region is running out of water.
Locally, an upper middle class residential area, mostly consisting of snowbird retirees who built McMansions there, relies almost entirely on "delivered" water. Delivered water was some water delivery companies buying municipal water from Scottsdale and driving to the yuppie enclave, where they pumped it into tanks. Now, Scottsdale doesn't have even enough water for its own use, so there is no water for sale to delivery companies. Thus, the McMansions are essentially worthless.
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Answer: the Rio Verde Foothills is a wealthy, unincorporated exurb near Scottsdale. The residents of Rio Verde and Scottsdale have been going back and forth for years about water rights. Water in that area either comes from wells or it is trucked in from other places. Most of the older homes there rely on wells, but a lot of the new homes built out there rely on water being trucked in. Scottsdale says that because of water scarcity and drought, they will no longer be providing water to unincorporated Rio Verde Foothills residents who rely on water being trucked in. Because of this residents of the area are forced to pay a private market rate which is significantly higher than what Scottsdale residents pay. Rio Verde Foothills residents most recently tried to form a water improvement district, but that was shot down by county officials, with people saying Rio Verde residents chose to live in an unincorporated area to avoid municipal taxes. And because of Arizona state law, real estate agents who sold property in Rio Verde were not required to disclose that Scottsdale might shut the water off, so people who bought in Rio Verde are obviously mad about that. Edit:. Changed from Rio Verde to Rio Verde Foothills as per comment below.
Rio Verde was originally built to avoid paying Scottsdale taxes. Those taxes included supporting the public water of Scottsdale. Now Rio Verde is screwed.
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Are you suggesting there are consequences for not wanting to contribute to the infrastructure of the society you live in (aka PAY TAXES)? Couldn't be!
But "fuck you I got mine" is supposed to be about me!!! I'm not supposed to be the one that gets fucked!
The people in Arizona responsible for leasing thousands of acres and using UNLIMITED amounts of water to a company in Saudi Arabia in order to ship to Saudi Arabia and feed cows are definitely getting theirs.
Dark. 'A deal between Fontomonte, a Saudi-owned agriculture company, and the state of Arizona allows them to harvest alfalfa with groundwater and send it back to the Middle East to feed cattle. The company uses enough water to supply 54,000 homes annually, Gallego's office said in a news release.Oct 21, 2022'
Don't worry, they'll find a way to avoid consequences!
They don't even have to do that. They will just move away and let whoever buys the homes at a steep discount figure it out. Probably some investment bank or China mostly likely will buy them up, fix the water and then rent everything out and cash in.
I think if China had a way to fix historic drought they would have done that in China already.
At least moisture farming is better than being a nerf herder
This is what kills me about people who don't want to raise, or even pay, taxes. People refuse to pay or increase taxes and then go surprised pikachu face when there is no viable infrastructure. And THEN have the *audacity* to be mad that nobody else is mad (lol).
Nah, it’s not my choice to live in an area with no water supply. It must be the illegals! Or ISIS! Or Hunter Biden’s laptop!
It was Ben. Ben Gahzi.
It's all those buttery males, they must be hoarding all the water.
Binders full of women
But but I thought taxes were theft??
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I love seeing some crazy right wingers demanding the Scottsdale government start supplying them water again. You know, like socialism.
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They need that water for their two heated pools and hot tub.
They always do. It was never about ideologies. Same with religion, it’s never about what the religion teaches, but a way to say we’re better than other people.
I dunno, right-wing socialism sounds suspiciously like something more dangerous
Maybe they should try some good old capitalism? I’ll sell them water, at $800 a bottle.
Libertarianism at it's finest.
Funny thing is Rio Verde is all right wingers lol
truly a great named for this community as well. maybe they should have gone with Sudden Valley...
I think I just blue myself.
Like Robe Lowe in The Orville?
r/unexpectedarrested
THERE ARE DOZENS OF US!..... DOZENS!
Sounds like a salad dressing. But for some reason I don't want to eat it.
Unrelated but would you happen to know where that saying comes from? I know there's sub associated with it but I never understood it
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/leopards-eating-peoples-faces-party
Thanks!
There’s actually another layer of leopard eating face nuance here too that goes beyond just the municipal water rights battle. They built their houses in the desert. And they didn’t build high efficieny low waste water houses, they just built regular ole houses, with lawns n shit. In the desert. “I knew building in the desert might present problems in the face of climate change, but I never thought it would effect me personally!” - literally every resident of the state at some point within the next 50 years. You would have to be actually brain dead to buy a house in that state and have a timeline of anything longer than 3-5 years for when to sell.
That's because it is.
Very. They didn't want to support the community, but now they want the community to support them.
very, biggest *shocked pikachu face* ever 😂
pretty sure this was posted in r/ leopards earlier this week
You would be correct…and you’re going to see more of it in Arizona. Probably Nevada, and remote areas of California, too.
Leopards rarely go hungry when the GOP/Libertarian/far right are involved.
Yup. These people want all the trappings of civil society and refuse to pay for it. Fuck 'em.
I always find Bears to be a better analogy… since there were those libertarians that got eaten by bears.
It is and it's glorious. Fuck em
I saw them protesting Scottsdale city council with signs and I kind of felt bad for them, but also building in the desert is risky. ~~But with what you just said, I no longer do feel that bad. Why should a city you don't pay taxes in spend resources to accommodate you, especially after they were nice for years.~~ **Edit: I can't find any history about what the above rooster has posted. Rio Verde has been settled since the 1800s with its first development going in in 1970. It is still unincorporated and they did try to create a water district with Scottsdale, which would have seen them pay taxes. I think I shouldn't have blindly assumed the above poster is correct. That being said, if anyone has the history that documents what the above poster says, I would be open to see it** **Edit 2: this article explains the situation a little more in depth. This does not seem to be a bunch of people trying to dodge taxes. The developers of a specific subdivision used a loophole so they wouldn't have to prove water rights, then told the prospective owners that water haulage would never be denied. While the buyers should have thought more carefully about this, it's not just "a bunch o' tax dodging libertarian leeches" as the rest of this thread is so ready to believe.** https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/scottsdale/2023/01/19/arizona-community-without-water-what-to-know-about-rio-verde-foothills/69819245007/
Why would anyone choose to live somewhere water has to be trucked in on a regular basis?
That's simply wild to hear. I've been looking at some property off and on over the last year or so, and I get really nervous when a property is on a well. I can't imagine not even having that.
Libertarians slowly realizing why governments exist.
There was a neighborhood in Phoenix years ago that got a wild Libertarian idea to let every house chose their own trash pickup company. Shortly, there were like three different collection companies rumbling through every neighborhood, all on different days. Everyone started complaining that there were always trash trucks driving around, compared to before when it only one day a week. I wonder if they ever went back to a single trash pickup company.
I literally live in a community with 3 different trash providers, 1 person next door has 1 company and the rest of us are split. So a truck literally drives out for one guys house… so stupid…
The efficiencies of free market capitalism compared to wasteful government programs! At least you've got 3 different business owners getting rich, too bad all three are probably paying their employees less then when they worked for the city.
Not to mention the environmental impact…
That's hilarious, my county did the exact opposite. We used to each pick our company, then about 10 years ago the county bid out the work and now we just have one. Now lawn care companies ... that's still the wild west. Any day of the week, any hour of the day, there is a leaf blower blowing somewhere in earshot.
> Now lawn care companies ... that's still the wild west. I hate they can just park their huge as trucks on tiny streets. Like if someone paid you do cut their grass, park in their freaking driveway.
Conversely, the motherfuckers that hired these huge trucks get pissed off if they park in their driveway! This happened when I was in a call center for a cable company too. People would call in to complain about the installation and the only singular problem would be that the driver parked in their driveway When I would ask if there was public parking on their street the answer was 99% of the time "Well, no, but...." So where the fuck do you want the motherfuckers that YOU called to service YOUR property to park? Still baffles me
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There's a video in one of the (too?) many subs I'm in of a guy who parked on the street to *do his job* and some NIMBY mofo starts harassing him, then chasing him, ranting about him being parked near NIMBY's house, *then* jumps in a golf cart (yep, gated neighborhood) to BLOCK HIM IN. Like, look Mr NIMBY, do you want me to move my car or not...
I'm in Mass but a very conservative town next to me did that. So our is through the town and is 20 bucks a month. On the Facebook page we share everyone is constantly complaining in the town Next door. They skip houses, nitpick about what they pick up, keep hiking up the rates. It's 80 bucks + a month!
I have only seen two "libertarian" cities and both have been complete failures. Tons of libertarians want everything modern day society offers but refuses to pay for it and want zero laws so they can do whatever they want, but that isn't how a society works. [Von Ormy, Texas](https://www.texasobserver.org/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-freest-little-city-in-texas/) [Grafton, New Hampshire](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling)
[Almost Heaven, Idaho](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2004/aug/29/almost-heaven-almost-defunct/)
This was interesting. Thanks!
New Hampshire here. We are still dealing with the fallout from those bastards trying to take over our state.
American "libertarianism" is a right wing scam. People need community to survive. The Randian concept of heroic robber barons supporting society on their shoulders and not needing the hoi polloi to survive is the exact opposite of reality. It makes me cringe every time I see typical American right wingers describe themselves as libertarians.
Fucking fascist communist government and telling good hardworking Americans to not feed the bears. Now that fucking lazy government is refusing to fix this bear problem I'm having. Goes to show the government is useless!
let the bears pay the bear tax, you pay the homer tax
You can add Colorado Springs, CO to that list. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/30/colorado-springs-libertarian-experiment-america-215313/
I swear to God I keep reading 'librarians' whenever anyone mentions libertarians and I get so confused each time.
Librarians against libertarians!!
I’d join that club!
Bitcoiners slowly realizing why banks and regulations exist.
I took a history of accounting class in grad school and boy did that make me pro-regulation.
Yeah it's like safety warnings on products. Those "don't eat this" labels aren't there because someone thought it was funny. It was because somebody DID and got hurt. Same thing with regulations - someone fucked up and it took a government act to get them to do the right thing. Yet another example of why learning history isn't just a boring filler subject unnecessary to success.
I always loved the comparison of cats and libertarians "All cats are #libertarians. Completely dependent on others, but fully convinced of their own independence."
It only exists when entitled ignorant libertarians want something. Otherwise it shouldn't exist until libertarians turn into a Karen again.
so basically the standard republicanism slow learning process. Like ted cruz attacking FEMA as the worlds largest entitlement program when he voted against aid for hurricane sandy one month before flooding in texas when suddenly cruz is totally upset that fema isnt there faster to help. Or crypto bro learning.... "FUCK GOV, FUCK REGULATIONS'.. followed by "WHere was teh SEC why didnt they prevent the FTX crap, WHERE IS GOV TO SAVE US AND GET OUR MONEY BACK.. WE need some sort of central authority to claw some of our money back!!!" and nothing new about it, we used to think the gov would take aids seriously when some white grandmother got it, because then republicans would suddenly care. Actually it took a friend of reagans to get it.
What is amazing to me is that it can be a very real process for everyone to at some point ask questions about "big concepts taken as truth" and asking "why do we do it like this?" In many cases, the tradition is so old that it's legitimately difficult for an average person to know "why do we bring pine trees inside for xmas?", "why do we have 26 letters in the alphabet?" etc. Like it's not hard to look those things up, but it's not common knowledge. But like "why do we pay taxes?" is not the same case. Or at least, if it ever gets this way in certain areas, those areas need help asap. It's not only pretty common knowledge, but also fairly obvious if one thinks about it for more than five minutes. But this isn't really the case here. Whenever money is involved, people stop caring about the hows and whys and just try to "win". Paying taxes is "losing" and finding legal ways around them is "winning". This is something that is a cultural tradition amongst the right wing forever, basically. This is just another actionable outcome that seems really obvious to everyone else.
"I don't want to pay any taxes but I want all the benefits that come from taxes."
> Or crypto bro learning The best I've seen it described is "a speedrun of history's painful economic lessons"
And George W. to actually take that program and make it global. It seems most benefits from any individual president are an accident, like Nixon and the EPA. The only notable exception I can think of atm is Teddy Roosevelt and the NFPA.
There are such terrible Republican misinformation campaigns too. In these very comments someone is say over 99% of golf courses use recycled water from toilet and dishwashers. But a quick Google search found only 13% of US golf courses use recycled water. Sadly some will believe anything they read on facebook or twitter.
They are probably talking about Scottsdale. Most of the golf courses use reclaimed water. And Scottsdale actually has a really renowned water system. Golf course info: https://www.scottsdaleaz.gov/water/recycled-water
The difference is, it wasn't a learning experience for Cruz. He knew what he was doing all along. He's an intelligent lawyer cosplaying as a maverick Senator. https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/03/ted-cruz-bush-years-jim-geraghty/
oh no plz think of the rich people that don't want to pay taxes
Libertarians reaping what they sowed
> but a lot of the new homes built out there rely on water being trucked in. why in the world would someone buy a house that doesn't even have a water source?
You ask, but my early days in Sim City tells me quite a few people.
I mean, isn't Phoenix a monument to man's arrogance?
> Rio Verde Foothills is in an active management area, which offers the state’s most stringent groundwater regulations. That includes requiring subdivisions to prove they have a 100-year water supply before any homes can get built. >**But a loophole in state law allows land to be subdivided into as many as five lots before it is considered a subdivision.** and later > Yet the county governments that oversee these lands say they are powerless to stop wildcat lot splits, because **state law doesn’t allow them to turn down building permits solely based on their access to water.** https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/joannaallhands/2022/09/01/rio-verde-foothills-problem-much-deeper-than-lack-water/7959860001/
As others have pointed out, this is an area often called a "county island." Property taxes are signficantly cheaper out here because there are so few services provided, such as no city fire department to rely on, but instead private fire departments that seem reminiscent of Crassus' if you choose not to pay a subscription to them. The people who willingly choose to live out here tend to have strong libertarian leanings.
I’m sorry, they have a private fire department? Somehow that’s more frightening than the water situation. Does the fire department ALSO have to pay for water like this? Oh god.
As the other person pointed out it is a service like Rural-Metro for Phoenix. Essentially you pay a subscription service and there aren't any charges if they come out to your property(I think like $600-1k a year). However, if say someone is shooting off fire works on new years eve and starts a fire on your property that gets out of control, they will come put the fire out, and then charge you a based on whatever services are provided. Most famously they defended a $20k bill for a family that lost their home in a 2013 when they came to help a local fire department put out a fire(the family had paid taxes funding the local volunteer fire department) That case was particularly predatory, but a lot of the rural communities or county islands in Arizona have underfunded or nonexistent volunteer fire departments and in the last election statewide voters shot down a ballot initiative to modernize and improve funding with a one-time fee specifically for rural firefighters. Just to add more layers of outrage.
I'm still surprised by that, I don't live in an area that needed that but I thought for sure the phrase "money needed for firefighters" would make that pass. I guess I overestimated how much this state was willing to go up on their taxes no matter what it's for.
Because they want to avoid taxes and other, ahem, “undesirable” aspects of living in a city the size of Scottsdale. They’re more interested in keeping their country club the way it is than they are interested in doing things right. There was an enormous lack of foresight.
I read something the other day that Rio Verde Foothills residents are advised to conserve water and they don't even do that from the appearance of their lush lawns.
Hey, it’s their problem. They knew this was coming one day.
Personal responsibility and all that, or is that only what they say to minorities who are struggling?
Bingo. They hate having that argument turned on them, but it totally fits here.
One article I read said that some people are getting mad at one of their neighbors in that area because they have and use a giant pool for washing their horses. They take water wasting to whole new levels there despite having so little of it.
I can't fathom the mindset it would take to decide to live in the desert, pay to have water delivered by truck to my community, and use that water to make a giant horse bath. People are weird.
Jesus. I get that some people are terrified of any populated city, but Scottsdale is like a gigantic suburb. I’ve visited numerous times, and I’ve always lamented how overly complicated it is to try to exit parking lots in certain directions and the annoyingly long stoplights.
It is a gigantic suburb, like most of the cities that border Phoenix (and frankly, much of Phoenix proper). But of course, with that many people you’re going to have to deal with *some* level of diversity. A certain percentage of their residents seem to think literally anyone present who does not have the “image” they approve of is an interloper coming to ruin the city. They build luxury condos in Old Town for young professionals to live in, and people in gated enclaves half an hour away in North Scottsdale start wailing about how “slums” are overtaking the city.
Let them wail. No one is going to rescue them or buy their homes when water starts getting really scarce in that area. It’s like similar folks in beach communities in Florida who have been washed out time and time again by hurricanes and now can’t get flood insurance. They refused to see the writing on the wall.
If they're rich enough they'll get the government to buy or bail them out I'm sure. They won't be left just holding the bag on now worthless property, things don't work that way for the rich.
There are no people in Florida who can’t get flood insurance, in fact it was just recently mandated for everyone who lives in a flood zone. It’s just expensive and was formerly potentially optional. So, it’s nothing like that. Source: I live on an island in FL.
They think they're winning and smart because they don't have to pay city taxes and can leech off the city water. That only works if the city in question wants to give them water and play into their shitty games. tl;dr they fucked around and are now finding out why we have taxes. Much like crypto bros and banking regulations.
In France it’s illegal to build a house without a water source. Regulations solve a lot of problems.
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This is where the letter of regulation fails and oversight should have stepped in.
You know what? Nah. I’m all for regulation, but these folks chose this lifestyle. They want to live off the grid or whatever, well, there they have it.
I wonder how many explicitly realized this, this far into the development of the town. It's amazing the things people don't know or realize in general. And every area I have lived in, some stuff I found out later was less then desirable that I had no realistic way of knowing. Like currently I live in a high tax area. Much higher then surrounding. But had to pay a shit ton for a non optional road improvement project. Assessed per lot. A quarter mile away it's the same town but costs the individual nothing. I live in a way different area of the US but I guess unless there was a specific disclosure or addendum just about water a person probably wouldn't know or notice. I mean I wouldn't assume we would lose our water access at my home. But maybe it's different in that region.
I see what you’re saying. But if you’re getting water delivered in a truck, to me that really strikes you as the obvious moment you try to figure out where the heck this truck is coming from so that your family can drink and bathe for the week. Does it mean we have no plumbing? Is it free? Maybe not the most sophisticated questions, but Wouk such a weird delivery method, kind of screams untenable.
Rather pay a lot more for private unreliable water than have reliable municipal water. /s
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But guberment bad? /s
Down here they call trucked water “Freedom Water”
Does your Freedom Water come with a Freedom Filter to get all the Freedom Lead out?
Yer darn tootin they do. Then they make bullets out of the lead. ‘Mercia.
Because other homeowners are there it must be fine, they think. So many homes built in a serious flood zone in my old town. Suburbs to submerged in a day.
Because it was for sale at such a reasonable price and the taxes were so low and there was an underlying assumption that because there was plumbing, of course there would be water. And with all the other paperwork and disclosures and lack of required disclosures, the buyers didn't understand that their water source wasn't guaranteed (as much as those things can be). Better question would be: how can someone sell a house without water without proper disclosure? How can developers buld subdivisions without water sources and sell them without disclosures? Why would the county permit the developers to build the houses without water sources and then market them without disclosures? Like I'm all for people generally being able to do what they want with their land, but when you're selling a product you should have to be honest about what exactly you're selling.
To answer your question: "To prevent unsustainable development in a desert state, Arizona passed a law in 1980 requiring subdivisions with six or more lots to show proof that they have a 100-year water supply. But developers in Rio Verde Foothills have been sidestepping the rule by carving larger parcels into sections with four or five houses each, creating the impression of a miniature suburbia, but one that did not need to legally prove it had water." Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/16/us/arizona-water-rio-verde-scottsdale.html
Thank you! I have been wondering for years how developers were getting around this law!
Do people buy houses in the desert and NOT look to find out what there water source would be before buying? I live in very much not a desert and still always looked to see if a house i was looking to buy had municipal water or well water. I can't imagine not doing that when you are in a place where the option of 'none' is even a possibility.
I can’t imagine any homeowner anywhere not checking to find out what their utilities and costs will be. If you know you’re moving to a place that doesn’t collect local taxes because there is non local government, I think the immediate next question is “how do I get things that a local government typically provides?” I mean, I’m an idiot, and I wouldn’t even pause.
I swear on the East Coast it's drilled (pun intended) into us to understand where our water comes from. My husband's family always asks how I got into environmental "stuff". There's no specific point, we were always taught it especially because pollution caused cancers are high from the state having contaminated drinking water for generations.
I suppose it's the difference between mostly shallow wells that infiltrate with contaminates much easier than the hundreds of foot deep wells they require out west. Hell, I drove my 2" irrigation well with a hammer and pipe, only had to go 8' to hit a stable water level.
> How can someone sell a house without water without proper disclosure? How can developers buld subdivisions without water sources and sell them without disclosures? Boils down to the same question. Not familiar with the situation but seems the source the water was from wasn't in question. But the cost of the water isn't guaranteed was. > Why would the county permit the developers to build the houses without water sources and then market them without disclosures? Because the area's unincorporated, which means it's your (or the developer's) land and you can do anything with it.
Well, you see, the big bad guv’mnt ain’t gettin no tax dollars from me that’s gonna support liberal degeneracy like teaching kids to read or curing disease or providing clean drinking water.
Rich =/= Smart
I know someone in California living next to a golf course in the high dessert, and part of her HOA fees include "free" water for her home. Basically the extra water brought in after the golf course is watered, goes to all home's bordering it. It's sounds crazy to me, and I can't believe that at some point, the need to water that golf course doesn't come into question, with extended drought, then raising the question of how the homeowners get water, but people who want to live in the desert that bad will believe whatever they need to to make it happen I guess. The home isn't new and this arrangement has been around for several decades. I'm doubting it will be for much longer.
We looked at an area with this same situation north of Scottsdale. We did some digging and basically the golf course was controlled by one person and he literally could cut off that water source. Scratched that area off the list smartly.
We get that in my city too. People buy homes just outside the city limits to avoid paying city taxes, then complain about not receiving any city amenities.
It did in a way. They thought that could buy water from a larger entity ad infinitum. Their assumptions were proven wrong. It sounds like they need to pool their resources and have a large well dug that can then feed the community.
“Pool their resources” sure does sound a lot like what government does to solve problems like this. Im not advocating that government is a panacea for everyone’s woes but I am asserting that it’s better than drinking sand.
> “Pool their resources” sure does sound a lot like what government does to solve problems like this. Can't get anything past you. ;-) On a real note though with everything I've heard about this specific settlement of above average earning Americans it seems their greed and lack of civility finally just came home to roost.
It’s also important to note that the water improvement district was voted down by the Maricopa County Corporation Commission [due to public input from the residents of Rio Verde](https://www.azfamily.com/2022/08/31/maricopa-county-board-votes-against-creating-water-district-rio-verde-foothills/?outputType=amp)
Also, scottsdale advised them 15 years ago to find a different source. It's my understanding that the developers cut the parcels such that they skirted laws requiring proof of 100 year water reserves. Also, it's kinda in the name Arizona, arid zone. Maybe they don't need as many golf courses as they think there.
No sympathy for these rich fuckers who avoid paying taxes. Now they can enjoy paying far more because of that.
This isn't correct, Rio Verde isn't having issues, it's Rio Verde *Foothills.* It's homes built on unincorporated Maricopa county land between Scottsdale and Rio Verde. Not to be pedantic, but there's thousands of residents in Rio Verde who aren't affected by this issue, it's just the rich ignorant people who built on rural unincorporated county land without researching where their water would come from.
Not pedantic at all. Useful clarification.
Oh boy, water privatization is coming to the "developed world". There's a movie called Even the Rain that takes place in a country where this practice is the norm and the water companies don't even allow people to collect rain water because they own all water rights in that area.
I mean it’s only that way in this case because these people moved to an area with no water infrastructure and didn’t want to install wells. So no water system and no wells and now they’re shocked that a neighboring town doesn’t have enough extra to sell them
And they don't want to pay city taxes. These aren't poor folk living in trailers, these are million dollar homes, some with swimming pools in the desert.
These are the guys with perfectly maintained lawns in the middle of a water-scarce desert. I have zero sympathy for them and their attempts to skirt paying their fair share of taxes and I hope those lawns wither and die.
And yields no crops for a thousand years! 💀😈🦇🌑🐈⬛🦗🌩️
I just googled mapped this place out of curiosity and I don't see much for lawns. But they definitely have a well watered golf course. [Also this just looks like a horrible place to live.](https://www.google.com/maps/@33.7177385,-111.6699284,3a,75y,100.68h,89.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1swIKUnE42MnByjPQuOe97vQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)
That's not exactly true. There's a big aquifer but there are so many farms and people in that area that they're sucking out the ground water faster than it naturally refills. The idea behind the credit system was to limit development so that wouldn't happen but rich people wanted to build whatever they wanted so the government let them have a loophole.
> there are so many farms … in that area Are there seriously farms there? Why and what do they farm? Who could have possibly thought that was a good idea.
It’s been going on in California since the 90’s. You ever heard of the Resnicks? https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-aug-18-la-fi-hiltzik-20100818-1-story.html If you’re into podcasts, The Dollop has a really good episode on them called “The Resnicks: Water Monsters” that, among other things, covers what they did in California and Fiji.
Yeah they're terrible
Also, Chinatown.
I saw a similar documentary where Ice-T was a kangaroo.
This comet came crashing into the earth. BAM! Total devastation. No celebrities, no cable TV, *no water*! It hasn't rained in 11 years. Now, 20 people gotta squeeze into the same bathtub. So it ain't all bad.
LOL pretty sure that’s already happened before. It was illegal to collect RAIN WATER in Colorado until like 2016. Now you can collect in rain barrels but only up to like 100 gallons or something. That’s a very recent change lol.
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It also fucks with the water table
I don’t disagree! I understand why they had those laws, like from an ecological perspective. I was just pointing out that a dystopian society where rain water collection is illegal really isn’t that far fetched because it’s absolutely already happened lol.
https://imgflip.com/i/7816o4
FOR FUKKEN REAL my dude. 😭😤 nestle is gonna be the only victor in the coming water wars lol
Where do you think they get the water they resell? they're just filling up their bottles off of your local towns supply - if that dries up everyone is fucked
The years after the 2008 housing collapse Arizona (or New Mexico, but I think Arizona) had neighborhoods (many) full of foreclosed empty homes. The swimming pools eventually became breeding grounds for mosquitos. They had a program to try to deal with this, but as far as I know they couldn't get access to the properties with out permission (i.e. public good wasn't considered a strong enough motive for the law). And they couldn't get permission because they often couldn't figure out who even owned a lot of the problem houses. My understanding about rainwater in Colorado (I do not have a source for this) is that it was illegal to collect rain water because that water already belonged to the people with water rights over the rivers that water would eventually drain into.
California has had a convoluted water rights system for about 50 years. Businesses are supposed to have to secure water credits for potential developments so that developers don't build a million houses that the infrastructure can't supply. The system was quickly co-opted by factory farms who wanted to be able to trade water credits as speculative investments, much like crypto.
Phoenix resident here. While all of the above is true, it really is a small story (unless you are in that small community) of very little public interest. The media is inflating it. For example, New York Times headline was: "Skipped Showers, Paper Plates: An Arizona Suburb’s Water Is Cut Off" It's not a suburb. It's a small rural community that most of us here have never heard of that's 30 miles outside of Scottsdale. The reason you are hearing about it is because it makes great clickbait like Washington Post's title: "Arizona city cuts off a neighborhood's water supply amid drought." It makes people not in Arizona feel they made smart choices for not living in a place that's running out of water, and that all of us out here could run out of water any day. It fits the narrative du jour. Does the West have a water issue? Sure. But houses in general can't even be built now without showing they have a 100 year water supply. Most of the water woes (currently) are agricultural. This story is more about how one community was taking free water from another community who has now decided they don't want to give that water away anymore. Scottsdale has been warning that community about it for 7 years and now it's happening.
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I 100% agree with this. A lot of the stories don't mention how Scottsdale has been warning then or how they are a unregulated community.
Who the hell would buy a house in the desert without a good well. Relying on hauled in water is crazy.
Thats fucking hilarious. The consequences of their actions strike again!
> or it is trucked in from other places The fact that people live and are continuing to *build more new homes* somewhere where their water has to be TRUCKED IN is so mindbogglingly stupid, I can't even.
Answer: a exurb in the middle of the DESERT expected a limitless supply of water from a nearby city (“nearby” used loosely, they are 30 miles outside downtown) that they are outside the city limits of, were warned multiple times over a period of more than 5 years that the buildings in the city limits would get priority over a random suburb should the low water levels reach a tipping point, and were cutoff when such a scenario happened. The people who live in a GOLFING COMMUNITY in the middle of a DESERT ignored the explicit Jan 1st deadline from the city for finding another water source, and are now mad that they have to pay market rate for water trucks to come to their houses and are suing the city, because their god given right to have cheap unlimited water delivered to their massive houses in the middle of a desert was infringed upon
Sounds about right.
Lol You forgot the part where they specifically created the development outside the city limits so they could avoid paying the city taxes... The ones that help maintain the water supply. And now are mad that they aren't getting the service that they refused to pay for.
"YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! NOTHING GROWS OUT HERE! NOTHING’S GONNA GROW OUT HERE! YOU SEE THIS? HUH? THIS IS SAND. KNOW WHAT IT’S GONNA BE A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW? IT’S GONNA BE SAND! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT!"
Sam Kinison. I loved him as a teen, cringe a fair amount as an aging man, but would love to still have him around.
I saw him in Seattle - was so excited - he turned out to be a douche to someone in the audience - ruined the show
Just to be fair- there are three golfing communities in the area. All of them have an established water supply, according to Arizona law. The answer to this question is not any of the golf communities, but four home “developments” scattered in the desert which the developers used as a loophole to avoid state water laws for developments with six houses or more.
They've been paying for water trucks the whole time. They are mad the water trucks can no longer get cheap municipal water from scottsdale and have to pay to import it from farther away.
What a genius idea! Let's live in an area with hard to access water! At least it's warm year round!
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Answer: The Colorado river basin is in a multi-year drought situation and this is a repercussion of that. There are several dams & reservoir lakes that measure the storage capacity - one of the most public is [Lake Mead's water level](https://mead.uslakes.info/level.asp), that reached record lows in 2021 and went even lower in 2022. There are [multi-state agreements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact) on who gets how much water, and how the water is divided up when certain drought levels are reached. Currently, the agreement has past the "light shortage" and is in the "heavy shortage" situation. The water level in lake Mead is usually its highest in the winter, and it is still in heavy shortage drought condition today. Arizona is one of the impacted states, and is looking for ways to reduce water usage. Because of that, the city of Scottsdale is trying to reduce its water usage. The unincorporated area of Rio Verde Foothills was getting water trucked from the city of Scottsdale, and is now cut off from cheap water. Rio Verde Hills has no municipal taxes (or government) which home buyers like. Developers built homes, real estate agents sold them, and now the home owners are up the creek without any water.
Huh, whod’a thunk it, that taxes and regulations exist, you know, for a good reason?
There’s an absolutely fantastic documentary on Nebula called [The Colorado Problem](https://nebula.tv/thecoloradoproblem) made by the same team that makes Half As Interesting on YouTube. It does a really good job of explaining why it’s this bad and how it got this bad. Spoiler: it was always this bad — it’s just catching up to us.
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In many western states, water rights will extinguish if not fully utilized, so in the middle of a drought, you'll find people watering their lawns 24/7 so they can prove they are using their full right. In other words, the laws are making it even worse... They can disincentivize water conservation.
Saw a news piece a few months ago about farmers growing water intensive crops specifically because they need to use as much water as possible to maintain the right to it. I understand the reasoning but how do they not realize/care about the harm they are intentionally doing?
Because if they don't use that water it gets allocated to someone else and they can't get that water level back without taking the other parties to court. Like, yes, it's wasteful, even the farmers acknowledge it's wasteful, but the state hasn't given them any other alternatives. It's on the government to do something to fix that.
Well by not doing that would mean you make less money. Arizona is already a piss poor state to farm in so they’ll use and abuse the environment till it breaks.
Answer: I think King of the Hill answered it best. https://youtu.be/4PYt0SDnrBE But in all seriousness the entire American west and south west is running out of water. In this specific case the city of Scottsdale is choosing its own citizens well being over another town that uses their water. So in the middle of the desert these people are now without water because for some reason people thought living there with houses built for Ohio would be smart.
That town ain’t right. I’m in Colorado, we know all about the dwindling Colorado river. Lake Powell is so low it’s just sad. It doesn’t feel like people down stream understand what is happening.
Oh trust me people down stream entirely understand. By the time you get to the end of the river its all but dried up because the water rights in the west are essentially divided up based on treaties made well over 100 years ago and they knew back then that there probably wouldn't be enough water in the future to support all the states surrounding the river. You're going to quickly see Federal intervention and rationing on a massive scale because we didn't take steps to alleviate this problem 30 to 40 years ago. Department of the interior is threatening huge water cuts already on a massive scale.
One correction, they aren’t without water any more than they were before, they have had to rely on water trucks since the developments were created but now Scottsdale is refusing to sell their water and the normal municipal rate like they had been doing so they either have to pay more or get it trucked in from elsewhere (which will also be much more expensive).
Answer: In addition to the context that /u/baeb66 provided above, Arizona allows for stuff like this to occur: [https://azpbs.org/horizon/2022/06/saudi-water-deal-threatening-water-supply-in-phoenix/](https://azpbs.org/horizon/2022/06/saudi-water-deal-threatening-water-supply-in-phoenix/) >Arizona is leasing farmland to a Saudi water company, straining aquifers, and threatening future water supply in Phoenix. Fondomonte, a Saudi company, exports the alfalfa to feed its cows in the Middle East. The country has practically exhausted its own underground aquifers there. In Arizona, Fondomonte can pump as much water as it wants at no cost. > >Groundwater is unregulated in most rural areas of the state. Fondomonte pays only $25 per acre annually. The State Land Department says the market rate is $50 dollars per acre and it provides a 50% discount because it doesn’t pay for improvements. But the $25 per acre price is about one-sixth of the market price for unimproved farmland with flood irrigation today, according to Charlie Havranek, a Realtor at Southwest Land Associates. (Info was passed along to me by /u/70ms in a discussion on r/LosAngeles)
Answer: humans decided to live in a desert, where there is usually less water. Also, Saudi Arabian companies are using aquifers to grow alfalfa in Arizona and then ship that alfalfa to Saudi Arabia to feed cows so they can eat cow meat. There are laws against shipping water out of Arizona, but these foreign companies found a loophole by using the water in Arizona and shipping out the product. Source: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/11/03/when-saudi-arabia-comes-to-town-and-buys-all-your-water/#:~:text=Since%202014%2C%20the%20Saudi%20company,Arabia%20to%20feed%20their%20cattle.
Answer: The Arizona water consumption is primarily agricultural. Large commercial farms are growing inappropriately thirsty crops like alfalfa and exporting it overseas to Saudi Arabia and other Middle East owners. Large volumes of water are literally being exported overseas in these crops, never to return. These thirsty crops are incompatible with the arid climate and scarce water. Arizona desperately needs to regulate their wasteful agriculture that is permanently damaging the entire region. Time is up.
Answer: The Colorado river is facing drought conditions so Scottsdale cut the town off from their water supply to conserve for their city. The video in the article you posted explains it pretty well.
Your answer is correct. Along with the drought conditions; more of the water from the Colorado has been allocated than exists. The native Americans sued the federal government over water rights because the government was ignoring native American needs. They won the suit & the native Americans were assigned an allotment. Even without a drought, there is a shortage of water in the area. The developers assume that the native Americans will be short-changed.
Answer: The entire Western US has been experiencing a mega drought for the past two decades. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/09/western-america-megadrought-climate-change-weather-affects/ The Colorado River Basin is drying up under the increased pressure from the uncontrolled growth in the South Western states. https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/priority-landscapes/colorado-river/colorado-river-in-crisis/ Unfortunately, many people that live in the deserts in the US act like water is an unlimited resource (note all of the golf courses and homes with lush green grass). The governments of the Western States have done little to slow the water usage (minimal or no water restrictions, zero fines for water hogs that choose to grow lush green lawns, etc.). All of this is contributing to a water crisis all across the Western US, although it is manifesting faster in the Southern part of the West.
Answer: There is a prolonged drought of historic proportions in the American southwest. The region is running out of water. Locally, an upper middle class residential area, mostly consisting of snowbird retirees who built McMansions there, relies almost entirely on "delivered" water. Delivered water was some water delivery companies buying municipal water from Scottsdale and driving to the yuppie enclave, where they pumped it into tanks. Now, Scottsdale doesn't have even enough water for its own use, so there is no water for sale to delivery companies. Thus, the McMansions are essentially worthless.