PHOENIX (CN) — A yearslong struggle to bring a reliable water source to a small community outside Phoenix finally has an end in sight.
The Arizona Corporation Commission convened Wednesday morning to unanimously approve a proposal from a private water company to provide water to the more than 1,000 people living Rio Verde Foothills, who were cut off from their water supply on Jan. 1 and have been fighting to acquire a new source since even earlier.
“I’m so thrilled,” said Christy Jackman, a 13-year resident. “We finally know what’s coming.”
The proposal comes from EPCOR, a Canadian utilities company that already services multiple communities around the valley.
Under the proposal, EPCOR will build a new water standpipe and route about 150 acre-feet, — 49 million gallons — of water per year to the community at an estimated rate of $16.28 per 1,000 gallons. But that price could go up to as much as $60 per 1,000 gallons, EPCOR’s attorney Jason Gellman said in the Wednesday meeting.
The plan will cover all current residents, as well as up to 150 landowners who plan to build in the near future. Landowners without homes built by the end of the year may have to pay a hookup fee of up to $24,000 dollars. They have until June 1, 2024, to enroll in the plan.
Foothills resident Karen Nabity took issue with the 150 enrollment limit, as it would greatly limit development in an area with nearly 2,000 partially or undeveloped parcels of land that could support homes in the future.
“By denying the property owners this opportunity, it also penalizes the residents who are customers of EPCOR by requiring them to pay a higher cost, when a higher number of residents would help to share the costs and make it more just.”
Commissioner Nick Meyers asked EPCOR whether it could expand landowner enrollment if it can acquire more than 150 acre-feet of water per year. Gellman said it’s theoretically possible, but not realistic.
“The supplies are just too limited,” he said.
EPCOR hasn’t yet decided where the new standpipe will be, or how much existing infrastructure from outside communities will be used. The two-to-three-year project could cost an excess of $12 million for the company.
Most houses in the foothills rely on hauled water delivered monthly by water trucks. Water haulers filled up at a standpipe in the city of Scottsdale before Jan. 1, driving 26 miles roundtrip for each water delivery.
But that service was halted for eight months after Scottsdale Mayor David Ortega finally made due on a longstanding promise to turn off the foothills’ tap in an effort to preserve water for his city. Water haulers were forced to drive farther outside the community to bring water back to residents, greatly reducing the amount they could return per month.
Residents compensated for the severe reduction in water deliveries by collecting rainwater for dishwashing and toilet flushing, and driving to friends’ housing in neighboring communities to shower and stock drinking water.
Plan after plan to return water to the community failed to achieve agreement, until a bill was finally signed in June. The bill requires a city to provide water to an unincorporated community of up to 750 homes for up to three years, if it did so before Jan. 1.
Water from Scottsdale resumed flowing to the standpipe in October, giving residents temporary relief as EPCOR gets to work on a long-term solution, which could take three years or more to come to fruition.
Cody Reim, who like Jackman became an unofficial spokesperson for the community since his neighborhood made national headlines, said he’s confident his community will make it til then.
“I think we’ve proved we can make it through a very similar situation if need be,” he said to the prospect of EPCOR’s solution not being ready when the three-year relief expires.
Still, Reim said he often feared over the summer that a happy ending wouldn’t come.
“That happened every day of the fight, and we just kept fighting harder,” he said. “There wasn’t ever a time in my mind where I said I’m gonna give up. There was no other option but to keep pressing forward.”
Foothills residents are currently paying close to $25 per 1,000 gallons for Scottsdale water — more than double what they’ve paid in the past.
A last-minute amendment from Commissioner Meyers slashed a $20 per 1,000 gallon rate limit, but both Reim and Jackman are confident that rates will go down under EPCOR’s solution.
“I’m going to trust EPCOR to do the best they can for our community," Jackman said. "I believe they know that there’s exorbitant, and then there’s reasonable. We got to let them figure out what they’ve got to do, and then they’ll tell us.”
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