Watering Duke City

It was warm today and Fleck says we’re days away from setting the record for the latest fall freeze. Its nearly Thanksgiving and I still have grasshoppers and roses in bloom.

I just got a robocall from Marty Chavez asking for me to help him with his Senate campaign. He told me he’s looking forward to meeting me personally. Just push 1. I'm reminded of the ads for late night chat lines. He sounds almost sexy. If I was a really lonely old lady blogger I’d do it. I almost push 1. Go ahead. DO it.

::slap, slap::

Water is topic du jour. The Albuquerque Journal reports that APS must pony up $3 million for a new water reservoir. V.B. Price reminds us agriculture isn’t a waste of water and Martin Heinrich pushes preserving the aquifer and getting $150 with toilet replacement in the Albuquerque Tribune. On the same page Jeffry Gardner writes condescendingly about women being pandered to with all that talk about utopia – like clean air and water.

Gardner kids around and asks if it’s too late to rescind a woman’s right to vote. Apparently his wife tried to electrocute him in a bathtub after he asked her this. And that made me smile.

(...) That is to say, politicians of both genders have figured out they can have their sleazy way with this bloc of voters, if they promise to make safer - check any that apply: our schools, our streets, our air, our water, our toys, our wars, our trees, our detergents, our conversations, our food, our pedicures, our . . . the list is practically endless. Basically, promise Utopia for the sake of our children, and you pick up more than a few votes.

Calling the promise of safe water “sleazy” seems sleazy. What are his preferred leaders promising? Endless war? I prefer even a misguided promise of utopia.

The accepted way we do things now – building sprawling suburbs and big box stores connected to distant large scale agriculture by long distance trucking – will change. V.B. Price reminds us that fuel costs, water and food are all connected. Local agriculture will grow. The context and history of the Middle Rio Grande – the qualities of the land and water available for farming and the high desert that surrounds us for hundreds of miles - assures this.

But change is hard. And nuance is a bitch.

Lastly in water news, the Albuquerque Journal covers the new $3 million water reservoir that APS must pay for. Building the new high school – and the surrounding development that will follow it – requires more water.

The water authority requires developers to pay for the additional waterlines and reservoirs in new service areas, rather than taxing existing users, said authority executive director Mark Sanchez. The initial developer is then reimbursed by future builders as water meters are added to projects.

Let’s review. The Albuquerque Public School District is the developer. So our property taxes are paying for $3 million in new water infrastructure. And that money will go to pay another taxpayer owned entity – the Water Authority – to provide new water service for sprawl. But that’s all OK because we’ll repay that with more sprawl.

So who is left holding the bag if new housing stalls? Or the housing market is flooded with multiple huge new developments at Mesa del Sol, Suncal and Rio Rancho?

Why does this sound like a pyramid scheme?

"That's just the stupidest thing I've ever heard," said board member Robert Lucero, whose district includes the new schools. "These entities are here to help us with the schools, not to be a hindrance."

Well, he’s almost right. These entities are here to help us with the sprawl, not be a hindrance.

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Comment by chantal on November 17, 2007 at 5:14pm: Last time I checked, the new housing market *has* already stalled. Anyone run the numbers on the economic impact of this yet for Albuquerque metro?

Somebody needs to start recording these robocalls and posting them online.

Comment by Inky Ink, Inc. on November 17, 2007 at 6:03pm: Good story, Coco--thank you! I'm up here in the City Indifferent and I've spent at least part of the past two weekends sitting in my font yard in shorts and t-shirt catching the rays. And, by the way, GREAT photo!!

Comment by Nora on November 17, 2007 at 7:17pm: Promises of utopia are terrifying to me. I read/write too much dystopian fiction to be able to handle it in any form.

Comment by John Fleck on November 18, 2007 at 1:23pm: There was a really interesting discussion over on Andy Revkin's blog yesterday about the nature of locally sustainable economies. (Can we do links on this new-fangled Ning thing?). Revkin, voicing the comments of someone else, noted that the Southwest is one of the places where population far overtaxes local resources. I don't know what the sustainable population here is - and by sustainable, I mean the point VB Price is making (and John Hooker frequently makes) about the need to eat food grown here. But that sustainable population, based on the total renewable water supply and the amount of agricultural land in New Mexico, is likely substantially smaller than the population we've got now.

Comment by First Little Pig on November 19, 2007 at 7:22am: The answer to the whole water she-bang is to charge market rates for water use, making it attractive for suppliers (private companies) find new resources (such as desalinating the very large brine reserves we have) and for consumers to conserve. If you had to pay for the true costs of water, you would cut down consumption and put a rain catchement system on your roof. I am building a house that (hopefully) will rely entirely on rainwater.

In my vision we would all gleefully put in low use toilets (or even waterless systems for that in some cases), shower-heads, and xeric plants.

Comment by chantal on November 19, 2007 at 7:38am: First Little Pig,

You know, my sister in Chicago pays more for her water than we do. And Chicago has, um, a giant lake nearby.

Comment by First Little Pig on November 19, 2007 at 5:23pm: Most likely bcse Chicago wants to collect an indirect tax that has little to do with the costs associated with water... But it is better than nothing.

Look at Atlanta today: Almost out of water bcse they all though the lake would last forever and that water was a freebie.

BTW Chantal: you rock! Thanks for setting up The Fix

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