The Daily Agenda: One big problem

Lots of little solutions ... The courts have no authority over Mark ... And Jake's back.

Arizona’s water supply is in peril, and no one solution is going to solve the problem. 

That’s why we were heartened to look through the list of grant applications to the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority (WIFA) Water Conservation Grant Fund. 

Lawmakers stocked the fund with $200 million in last year’s budget, and local governments are now applying for their chunk of the money. It’s one of several grants WIFA has been tasked with distributing in recent years as lawmakers put increased focus on state and federal funding for local solutions.  

The grant fund allows municipalities and government entities to access up to $3 million for conservation projects, though the applicants need some skin in the game — they have to put up a 25% match. 

The grants encourage governments to think outside the box and come up with local solutions to save local water. Many of the solutions cities and local governments came up with were pretty basic — ripping out grass in favor of xeriscaping government properties or paying residents to do it, was a big one. 

But a few of the solutions were creative approaches to saving water:

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• In Peoria, officials want $2.3 million to remove trihalomethanes, a dangerous byproduct of the chlorine used to treat drinking water, from 18 of its reservoirs. Currently, when the levels build up, the city is forced to periodically flush fresh water through the system, wasting about 2.5 million gallons of water per year. By eliminating this flushing, the city can reduce its reliance on Colorado River water and groundwater. 

• A reforestation group wants to restore riparian areas on the Lower Salt River, specifically by removing thirsty salt cedar trees and replacing them with native species. Doing so would reduce the risk of wildfire, create a healthier watershed and save huge amounts of water. The group believes it can save about 27 acre-feet of water per year by replacing salt cedars with native trees on about 150 acres around the river with about $1.2 million in grant money. 

• A pair of professors are asking for a $250,000 grant to develop a portable, low-energy desalination system to turn the state’s supply of unusable brackish water into farm water, saying they’ve come up with a process that works almost as well as reverse osmosis desalination at only a fraction of the energy. 

• Several small towns, including Clarkdale, want to install smart water meters to help detect leaks and encourage water customers to more closely monitor their use. In Clarkdale alone, officials think they could save five acre-feet of water per year simply by detecting leaks with a roughly $500,000 grant for smart meters. The city has already installed some smart meters and caught hundreds of leaks on government and residential properties, saving customers water and money, as noted in its application. 

• Marana wants a $3 million grant to recharge the local aquifer by releasing effluent water into the Santa Cruz River. Tucson has been pouring its treated effluent water into a portion of the Santa Cruz since 2019, creating a habitat for birds, fish, insects and mammals along the one mile of the once-dry riverbed. The city says it could pump as much as 15,000 acre-feet of water back into the local aquifer per year, though it’ll ultimately cost more than the grant can provide. 

You can check out the full list of proposals here. 

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We were lucky to have a wet winter that is pushing some dams and reservoirs to their brink, but the general trendline is not going in the right direction. Arizona is wasting water through a million tiny leaks, and each one of these projects would be just a small patch for those leaks. 

But conserving water is just one aspect of the problem. Policymakers also need to look at regulation and protecting the water we have.

Still, the list of projects is a good reminder that there are a lot of solutions to Arizona’s water problem. And we’ll probably need them all.

There’s wrong, then there’s Finchem wrong: Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Melissa Julian on Friday ordered Mark Finchem and his lawyers to pay $48,000 for bringing a “groundless” lawsuit that said last November’s secretary of state election was rigged, Mary Jo Pitzl writes in the Republic. Finchem told Pitzl that the judge has no authority to issue sanctions. A different judge declined to sanction Kari Lake for her election challenge, saying her lawsuit wasn’t “groundless,” she was just wrong.

Richer vs. Lake: Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer should run in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate against Lake (who has not announced she’s running yet), Substacker Robert Robb says. That is if he’s up for another few years of dealing with lunacy. 

“Richer knows the election conspiracy portfolio cold. He knows the answer to every delusion and excuse Lake will attempt to peddle,” Robb writes.

Plandemic returns: A two-day hearing at the Arizona Senate about the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic went about as expected. Legislators invited “experts” who trotted out conspiracies and weird beliefs, including that the polio vaccine doesn’t work, the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy writes. 

Keep an eye on the bigger picture: Body camera footage will shed some light on the circumstances of Border Patrol agents fatally shooting a Tohono O’odham man on May 18, writes Tim Steller in the Daily Star. At the same time, camera footage can’t show the “bigger picture.” The shooting happened in a village not far from where the Arizona-Mexico border was drawn in 1853.

Beers flying out the windows: Coolidge Parks and Recreation Director Ricky LaPaglia is under investigation in a May 9 drunken hit-and-run, Michael Maresh reports for the Coolidge Examiner. The city’s finance director, Gabe Garcia, who allegedly was drinking in the passenger seat, won’t face any charges. LaPaglia allegedly rear-ended another driver, who chased after them as they drove away from the scene.

“The victim told police that as he pursued, beer bottles flew from the driver’s side of the truck LaPaglia was driving,” Maresh writes.

He can’t see it because it didn’t happen: Cochise County Director of Emergency Management Daniel Duchon told county supervisors that the end of Title 42, a public health order used to expel migrants at the border, had a virtually non-existent impact. But supervisors were unconvinced that there wasn’t a problem, Summer How writes for Arizona Public Media.

“Of course, it’s a disaster. Of course, our country is going down the tubes,” Supervisor Tom Crosby said. “I don’t know why you can’t see that.”

There’s no right answer: The City of Phoenix is trying to thread the needle as it deals with the Zone, an area where unhoused people have been staying, the Associated Press reported. On the one hand, a superior court judge ordered the city to clear the area. On the other hand, the ACLU is arguing in federal court that the city is violating unhoused people’s civil rights by clearing the area.

That’ll teach them: Secretary of State Adrian Fontes is still mad that lawmakers only gave him part of the funding he requested in this year’s budget process, and only as one-time money rather than an ongoing increase. He still got enough to hire his top priority position, a chief information security officer, but he says other projects will have to wait. 

"Perhaps we don't do anything to improve the campaign finance system," he told the Republic’s Pitzl, also threatening not to upgrade the lobbyist registration system. 

Speak to her lawyers: Democratic Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton didn’t show up for an ethics hearing where legislators debated whether she violated House ethics rules by hiding Bibles in a lounge at the state capitol, Howie Fischer reports for Capitol Media Services. Republican Rep. Joseph Chaplik, chair of the House Ethics Committee, wants to decide what to do about #Biblegate by the time lawmakers return to session on June 12.

Sleepy town no longer: We all know that Pinal County is booming in terms of people moving there. But the area is also building homes at the fastest rate in the state, Cronkite News’ Jasmine Kabiri reports. Maricopa County increased its housing supply by 1.5% from July 2021 to July 2022, while Pinal County increased its stock by 3.5%. 

Four days > five days: The Town of Sahuarita is the latest municipality to switch to a four-day work week. It’s just a one-year pilot program right now, the Green Valley News’ Dan Shearer reports, and it doesn’t include any reduction in the number of work hours for employees. 

Having seemingly learned nothing since Jan. 6, 2021, except how to cash in on his fame, Arizona’s horn-wearing, shirtless, tatted QAnon heartthrob Jacob Chansley, AKA Jake Angeli, signed mug shots and T-shirts for his crowd of fawning adorers this weekend at a Scottsdale church. 

The former QAnon Shaman has reinvented himself as America’s Shaman, “a spiritual guide on the road toward ascension and spiritual evolution.” And he warned about the coming “spiritual war.” If you are worried about the spiritual war, you can book him for a personal spiritual consultation for $500 per hour per person. 

Chansley was released from a halfway house last week after being released from custody early for “good behavior” and immediately returned to his stomping grounds at the Arizona Capitol.

The way things are going, you will probably get the chance to vote for him soon.