City of Tucson Issues

Tucson Water is the largest municipal utility in southern Arizona, serving 80 percent of the population of the metropolitan Tucson area. Serving water in a desert community brings with it special challenges related to water resources, water usage, and water quality. Tucson Water approaches each of these challenges with a commitment to providing excellent service and water at an affordable price. Through innovative planning, incorporation of new technologies, and a dedicated and knowledgeable staff, the Utility strives to meet the needs of today’s customers and ensure supplies for the future.

Switching to Renewable Resources

Tucson is located at the edge of the Sonoran desert and receives less than 12 inches of rain in an average year. There are no permanent surface water sources in the Tucson area. As a result, all of the water users in the region have historically relied upon mined groundwater for their water supply. The City of Tucson was once one of the largest cities in the U. S. completely dependent upon mined groundwater.

Growing dependence upon groundwater resulted in the gradual de-watering of the aquifers in the region. As recently as 2000, groundwater was being used at two to three times the rate that nature could replenish it, and on average, the water table was dropping more than 4 feet each year. Some water levels had dropped by more than 250 feet since the 1950s.

To reduce this overdraft and to ensure the future of our community, the City of Tucson has been actively developing alternate water supplies for many years. In addition to a growing reclaimed water system, one of the region’s largest and most important resources is Colorado River water imported through the Central Arizona Project (CAP) canal system. Tucson Water has access to an annual allotment of more than 144,000 acre-feet/year through a long-term contract with the CAP system.

In 2001, Tucson Water began delivering a blend of groundwater and recharged Colorado River water produced at the Clearwater Renewable Resources Facility, located on retired agricultural property purchased by the utility in the 1970s as a future groundwater resource. Currently, the utility is recharging and recovering nearly 60,000 acre-feet/year of the blended water for delivery to customers, which meets approximately 45 percent of annual water demand. Planning is underway for an expansion of the Clearwater facilities. By the end of 2008, the utility plans to have sufficient capacity to recharge its full CAP allotment, and recovery of the resulting groundwater/surface water blend will increase over time as additional wells and recovery transmission facilities are put into place.

Conservation

Tucson has long been a leader in achieving water efficiency through conservation efforts. Tucson Water residential customers use approximately 120 gallons per person per day, one of the lowest rates in the southwestern United States, and particularly impressive in a desert environment.
Tucson Water has helped the community achieve this success through a wide variety of educational, training and informational programs, an inclining block rate water rate structure that sends a strong conservation signal, and a number of landscaping and plumbing ordinances and other mandates. Tucson Water’s "Beat the Peak" program celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2006, and the program’s duck mascot “Pete the Beak” is one of the most recognizable public figures in the Tucson region.

Operational Efficiencies

Tucson Water is continually seeking ways to operate in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. Through the Maintenance Management Program, the utility has actively promoted cross-training and developed a "skill-based pay” program that rewards employees for mastering new skills with additional compensation. As employees gain additional skills, positions that open through natural attrition can be eliminated or reclassified to accomplish different objectives. In this way, Tucson Water’s ratio of employees to customers has steadily declined in recent years, despite an annual customer growth rate of approximately 2 percent.

In addition, the department conducted a thorough evaluation of all operational activities, reverse and then forward engineering each process to eliminate redundancies and reduce the number of employees involved in each activity. For some activities, this evaluation resulted in reducing the number of processes involved by more than 50 percent.

New technologies also are an important tool in finding and achieving greater operational efficiency. Tucson Water has been implementing a coordinated asset management system that will one day provide “one-stop shopping” for all asset-related information in a GIS environment.

Water Quality Issues

Tucson Water provides customers with online access to water quality monitoring results for a suite of compounds and characteristics selected through surveys and interactive communication with customers. An innovative and zoomable map-based system allows viewers to locate the water quality system sampling point or POE closest to their home or business and view the most recent monitoring results. For more information, visit our website's Water Quality section.