Scottsdale, Arizona Water Crisis

Imagine buying a newly constructed 6,000-square foot home, nestled in the mountains. Your dream home provides breathtaking views, a desert landscape reminiscent of a Maynard Dixon painting, and ample acreage as far as the eye can see.  

Now, imagine not having any running water in your abode.  Imagine bathing at a nearby gym, having to rely on bottled water for all potable water, and taking all your laundry to a laundromat.  This is the conundrum faced by residents of the Rio Verde Foothills, a modern and chic, yet unincorporated, community built on the outskirts of Scottsdale, Arizona.

There’s no denying that Arizona faces a water crisis as the region is in a multi-decade megadrought.  Certain municipalities have had to take drastic measures.  Scottsdale may have taken the most drastic.  In 2021, city officials announced that as of January 1, 2023, Rio Verde Foothills residents would no longer have access to city water. As of that date, the water hauler trucks that deliver water to approximately 500 Rio Verde Foothills homes would no longer be permitted to deliver Scottsdale's water there.

A number of solutions to this crisis have been proposed.  First, EPCOR, a Canadian water utility, has offered to take over water services for Rio Verde Foothills and create “a water district” for the area. However, the Maricopa County of Supervisors have passed on that proposal. Not only that, but it would also take at least three years for EPCOR to build the required infrastructure to get water service up and running.  Dynamite Water, a water hauling company currently serving Rio Verde, proposed the second solution, which was to buy a year's water supply from the San Carlos Apache tribe and deliver that water to residents’ water tanks.  The issue with that proposal is that the tribe still needs approval from multiple federal and tribal agencies.  Bureaucracy at its finest.  

In the meantime, Rio Verde Foothills residents have filed a lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court.  They seek injunction against Scottsdale to force the city to provide them with water.  No solutions are on the horizon, but what is clear is that Rio Verde Foothills residents will be dealing with declining property values, unimaginable hardships, and a bureaucratic morass tha they soon will not be able to dig out of.