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http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/dailystar/58554.php

 Water problems close spigots for the biggest city in Arizona

High and dry in Phoenix
By Tom Beal
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
 
Tucson discovered Tuesday that it's sometimes good to be at the end of the
surface-water spigot as Phoenix Water customers - all 1.5 million of them -
were told to boil their drinking water.
 
Phoenix's treatment plants couldn't safely handle muddy storm runoff from
the river systems that supply 90 percent of the city's water.
 
"The risk of contamination is low," Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon said in a
release from his office, but the water leaving the city's Val Vista water
treatment plant held 2.1 parts per billion of particulates, more than twice
the federal standard of one part per billion.
 
The city said it hoped to lift the advisory against drinking tap water by
noon today. It reported turbidity levels well within federal guidelines
Tuesday afternoon.
 
Health officials had warned that higher particle levels could weaken the
chlorination process, which can interfere with disinfection.
 
Across the city, people stocked up on bottled water, schools shut down
their drinking fountains and canceled gym classes, and hospitals gave
patients waterless baths. At least one restaurant chain, Einstein Bros.
Bagels, closed for the day, The Associated Press reported.
 
Officials in Phoenix and the city of Mesa also asked residents to conserve
water by taking shorter showers and not watering outdoors.
 
Phoenix had only two of its five water treatment plants in operation when
problems were discovered at the Val Vista plant. Two others had been shut
down for annual drying-out and maintenance of the canals that feed them. A
third had been damaged by flooding.
 
Mesa, which shares the Val Vista plant with the city of Phoenix, shut down
its connection to it early Tuesday and switched to total reliance on well
water.
 
Mesa can nearly meet its demand without the treated river water, said Stacy
Damp, utilities department spokeswoman, but asked customers to cut back.
"And we've ordered rain," Damp said.
 
Scottsdale, which contracts with Phoenix for a portion of its water supply,
segregated and shut down that supply after being alerted to the
contamination threat Monday night, said David Mansfield director of water
operations.
 
Mansfield said Scottsdale can meet its winter demand entirely from its
wells.
 
The main culprit in the Phoenix water crisis is the Verde River, which
drains a wide swath of Arizona's central high country, including the
Flagstaff and Prescott areas. The Verde and its tributaries have
intermittently flooded for much of the past month.
 
Heavy snow, followed by warm rain, has filled the two Verde River dams
north of Phoenix with muddy water. With Horseshoe and Bartlett dams at
capacity, the Salt River Project, which operates them, has been releasing
water at more than 10 times the normal rate.
 
The utility plans to double those releases starting today, with three
storms predicted for Arizona's high country in the next five days, said
Scott Harelson, Salt River Project spokesman.
 
"If we could just get those storms to shift a little east, we've got all
kinds of room at Roosevelt Dam," Harelson said. Roosevelt is the largest of
four dams on the Salt River watershed, which stands at 54 percent capacity
after years of drought.
 
But with water tumbling down from the high country into the Verde, the
utility will have to keep releasing its precious water, which enters the
Salt River downstream of its dams and its ability to use it.
 
All that water might give the impression that Arizona is getting over its
drought, but it's not, said Gary Woodard, associate director of University
of Arizona's Center for Sustainability of Semi-Arid Hydrology and Riparian
Areas.
 
It could be that damage to the watershed from drought and fire has simply
increased runoff, and rain that runs right off doesn't do much for the
watershed, Woodard said.
 
"It's often late March before you have a good idea of whether you even have
a good snowpack or not," Woodard said, "and all of these droughts have at
least one wet year in the middle of them."
 
Woodard was in Phoenix Tuesday for a "water day" at the Legislature,
sponsored by his center.
 
"I was standing there talking with folks from SRP and CAP and Phoenix
Water, and they were all just pulling their hair out," he said.
 
It's one problem that Tucson needn't fear, he said. "We are totally removed
because even the surface water we get is indirectly used," Woodard said.
 
It's one benefit of being at the end of the water-supply spigot. Tucson
does use surface water, which travels to it in a 330-mile uphill canal from
the Colorado River at Lake Havasu. But none of that water goes directly to
a treatment plant, Tucson Water spokesman Mitch Basefsky said.
 
The Central Arizona Project water is directed into settling ponds and sinks
into the ground at the city's Clearwater Renewable Resource Facility in
Avra Valley, northwest of the city.
 
Even if the water had a problem with "turbidity" or undissolved particles,
which is the case in Phoenix, those particles would be stripped off as the
water sank through the soil, said Basefsky.
 
The water, which mixes with the ground water in Avra Valley, is then pumped
from underground wells, treated and delivered to customers. Clearwater's
mix currently supplies 50 million gallons a day, about 65 percent of the
water Tucsonans use in the winter.
 
If there were a problem with the quality of that water - or with its
delivery, as occurred when a major water line broke in 1999 - the city can
reactivate wells on "standby status" in the central city, Basefsky said.
 
Phoenix does not have that immediate backup, but it hopes to be over its
water crisis today.
 
The mayor's office said late Tuesday that "most recent test results show no
bacteria levels beyond the federal standards - or beyond the norm, and show
an increase in particulates which are not harmful."
 
"Our hope is that we will all be back to drinking water and fountain drinks
tomorrow morning," Mayor Gordon said.
 
 
? The Associated Press contributed to this report. ? Contact reporter Tom
Beal at 573-4158 or tbeal@azstarnet.com.