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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/gila-river-indian-community-reclaimed-wastewater-exchange/>
"Looking out along Old Maricopa Road — the state highway that cuts 17 miles
north-south through the Gila River Indian Community reservation, just south of
Phoenix — David DeJong saw barren land, fallow fields baking under the Arizona
sun. It was the 1970s, and DeJong, then a teenager, was on one of his regular
drives through the Gila River community from his hometown of Mesa to work on a
family farm in Maricopa.
“It was obvious to me that a lot of this land had been farmed, and I wanted to
know why it wasn’t being farmed anymore,” says DeJong. “Something had happened
here.”
Today, the view from Old Maricopa Road, now State Highway 347, is greener than
it was half a century ago. The Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) has been
working to bring agriculture — and its lifeblood, water — back to its territory
for 150 years. And in their fight, which has spanned federal courtrooms and
irrigation canals, the community has found an unlikely and increasingly
important tool: wastewater.
Since 2004, GRIC has taken part in a novel water exchange program with two of
its neighboring cities, allowing it to swap part of its legally enshrined
allotment of Colorado River water for an even larger sum of triple-treated
agricultural-grade reclaimed wastewater. In an increasingly water-scarce West,
the GRIC water exchange is a model of how residential and agricultural needs
can be aligned to create a stable, sustainable and sanitary water supply that
connects farms to tables — and back again."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
