Walkup turns on Tucson's CAP water tap

Jeffry Scott / Staff
Mayor Bob Walkup: "We're going to start delivering clean and safe water to our people - guaranteed."

Jeffry Scott / Staff
Dean Trammel, Tucson Water senior engineering technician, gets a close-up view of one of of seven diesel pumps. He wasn't involved in the project, but attended the ceremonies yesterday.

By Mitch Tobin
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Mayor Bob Walkup put on his "happy tie" Thursday morning, and then ended Tucson's total dependence on its shrinking supply of ground water.

With a cry of "Start your pumps!" Walkup began sending a blend of Colorado River water mixed with Avra Valley ground water toward the city at about 11 a.m.

It will take two to three days for the water to reach Midtown. And the blend that arrives will contain less than 5 percent river water.

Even though Tucsonans' water didn't really change Thursday, officials still heralded the day as a watershed event in city history.

"We've tested and tested and tested. We've checked and checked and checked," Walkup said. "We're going to start delivering clean and safe water to our people - guaranteed."

The last time Tucson Water tried Colorado River water, in the early 1990s, the city gagged.

Poor planning and faulty water treatment led to corroding pipes, damaged appliances and smelly, bad-tasting and rust-colored water coming from people's faucets.

This time, instead of directly delivering Colorado River water, Tucson Water is first "recharging" it into the Avra Valley aquifer. There it will mix with local ground water and be recovered with wells.

It will take eight to 10 years for the blend to rise to the half-and-half mix of CAP and ground water that Tucson Water tested in four neighborhoods with 95 percent approval ratings.

Initially, the CAP blend will account for only about 15 percent of Tucson Water's average daily demand of 101 million gallons. By 2003, the blend will supply about half the demand.

Although the blend will initially be almost entirely ground water, some city officials are still expecting complaints.

Assistant city attorney Chris Avery noted that Tucson Water had a "spike" in complaints right after Walkup dedicated the 11.5-mile pipeline from the Avra Valley to Tucson on March 1.

That move did not change Tucson's water by one drop.

"There's always going to be a residual amount of CAP hysteria you'll have to deal with," said Avery, who is handling the roughly 5,000 CAP-related damage claims filed against the city during the first attempt at delivery.

Tucson Water is pledging that it'll be watching the CAP reintroduction like a hawk.

In the early 1990s, the city-owned utility was criticized for responding too slowly to reports of abnormal water.

This time, Tucson Water's customer service center will be open longer and have 20 additional employees ready to handle calls.

Utility staff members will meet every afternoon to review data from the system's nearly 300 monitoring stations, which residents can also access via the Internet.

The influx of CAP water will allow Tucson Water to keep 26 of its Midtown wells on standby this summer. By 2003, about 85 wells are slated for rest. That should allow the aquifer to recover from decades of overpumping that has plunged the water table 200 feet and caused the ground to sink several inches.

"We're now, for the first time . . . beginning to save our precious ground water sitting underneath Tucson." Walkup said. "Hallelujah!"

Car dealer Bob Beaudry, who helped bankroll a failed 1999 ballot measure that would have further restricted Tucson's use of the CAP, said Thursday's reintroduction was a "wonderful conclusion" to Tucson's water wars of the 1990s.

"It's a compromise between the community - which was upset with the quality of the water - and the status quo," said Beaudry, who attended the ceremony. "I've got to take my hat off to the fact that they've pulled it off."

For Sol Resnick, 82, Thursday's ceremony was 43 years in the making.

In 1958, the University of Arizona hydrologist became an expert witness in a Supreme Court case between Arizona and California that decided how the Colorado's water would be divided.

Arizona's victory in the 11-year court battle cleared the way for approval of the $4 billion CAP in 1968.

"It's been a long fight," Resnick said.

* Contact Mitch Tobin at 806-7739 or by e-mail at mtobin@azstarnet.com.