Daniel Salzler No. 1332 EnviroInsight.org Five Items November 14 2025
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1. Arizona Farmers Turn Desert Challenges Into Water Innovation. Arizona producers are proving that desert farming and water conservation can coexist through technology, reuse, and efficiency — reinforcing both food security and environmental stewardship.
In Arizona, where water scarcity shapes every planting decision, farmers are redefining what sustainability looks like in one of the driest regions on earth. An Arizona Farm Bureau commentary by Julie Murphree argues that growing food in the desert is not wasteful — it’s a strategic investment in food security, technology, and resilience.
Murphree notes that while agriculture once used up to 90 percent of Arizona’s water, today that figure has dropped to roughly 72 percent, driven by efficiency gains and widespread adoption of precision irrigation.
Many producers have cut water use by 20 to 50 percent through upgraded systems, lined ditches, surge irrigation, soil moisture sensors, and real-time data that enable water to be applied with pinpoint accuracy. Livestock and dairy operations increasingly reuse water for crops such as alfalfa, while conservation tillage helps trap moisture in the soil.
Arizona agriculture contributes about $31 billion annually to the economy, growing everything from leafy greens to forage for dairy and beef operations. Murphree argues that restricting or eliminating farming in arid states would weaken domestic food security at a time when global instability and supply-chain risks make local production critical.
“Agriculture isn’t the problem,” she writes. “It’s part of the solution.”
Farm-Level Takeaway: Arizona producers are proving that desert farming and water conservation can coexist through technology, reuse, and efficiency — reinforcing both food security and environmental stewardship.Source: RFD-TV News(Nashville, TN)
2. Queen Creek Mulling $240 Million Water Purchase. Queen Creek Town Council this week is scheduled to take a step toward a possible $240 million deal to purchase Harquahala Basin water from western Arizona landowners.
On the agenda is the transfer of nearly $45.7 million in unused or excess funds from the town’s capital project accounts toward the deal, which will be part of an overall purchase scheduled to go before Council on Nov. 19.
Town Manager Bruce Gardner told Council in a memo that Queen Creek “has an opportunity to purchase an additional 12,000 acre-feet to reduce its reliance on the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District and provide an assured water supply to its residents.”
He added the offering price of $20,000 per acre is good until Feb. 15.
In advance of Council’s meeting, the town will hold an informational session for the public at 6 p.m. Nov. 10 at Community Chambers, 20727 E. Civic Parkway “to provide information about an upcoming decision related to investing in the Town’s water future,” according to a town release.
“Investing in the strategic source of water would allow the Town to become a designated water provider earlier than projected, reduce local groundwater pumping and move away from the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District (CAGRD),” the town said.
“Queen Creek continues to take important steps to secure a reliable, long-term water supply for residents and businesses. Since purchasing its first water company in 2007, the Town has worked to manage water service levels and costs with the goal of becoming a Designated Water Provider, a certification granted by the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR),” the release said.
“This designation, already held by most Valley municipalities, ensures a 100-year assured water supply for the community.”
Noting the town already has an agreement in place to buy 5,000 acre-feet annually from the Harquahala Groundwater Basin, the release said Queen Creek “locked in a price to secure up to 12,000 acre-feet of additional water.
3. AI Is Using Your Energy And Water—And Polluting Your Air.
Across the country, massive facilities called data centers are filled with thousands of computers that process billions of artificial intelligence (AI) requests all day, every day.
When a user inputs a prompt into a generative AI tool such as Google, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Open AI’s ChatGPT, or X’s Grok, that request goes to a server located in one of those data centers. Powerful computer processors then generate the text, images, or videos requested and send the data back to your phone or computer.
There are public health and environmental implications of this technology at every step of the process. A single AI-focused data center can use as much electricity as a small city. Communities breathing polluted air near data centers or those paying higher energy bills are at the front line of the technology’s impacts, and often the last to receive its benefits. And because data centers use water to keep their equipment cool, they often strain local communities’ water resources, particularly in drought-prone regions such as Arizona, California, and parts of Texas. Data centers that process AI requests can use as much water as a large neighborhood!
As the use of AI increases, its direct impacts on energy, water, and pollution are on the rise as well. So, while reactions to AI use may vary—some people are enthusiastic adopters, while others remain unimpressed by its day-to-day applications, and still more fear its capacity to displace jobs—a recent Pew Research Center report said there is one area where the public and experts agree: there is a need for more control and regulation of AI.
AI’s IMPACTS BY THE NUMBERS
Data centers are fueling the AI boom. Both are expected to keep growing and consuming more resources—diverting energy and water from communities.
ENERGY USE
Electricity consumption by data centers is increasing quickly. The US Data Center Energy Usage Report said that in 2018 data centers used 1.9 percent of all US electricity. In 2023, that consumption increased to 4.4 percent. Some experts estimate electricity consumption by data centers could nearly triple in the next three years. ChatGPT alone is estimated to receive more than a billion requests per day for generating text, and tens of millions for generating images.
According to a report in MIT Technology Review, a single query to a small AI text model uses about 114 joules, roughly equivalent to running a microwave for one-tenth of a second. However, more powerful models can use 6,706 joules per text response, or enough energy to run that same microwave for eight seconds.
Generating a standard-quality image requires about 2,282 joules, while creating a high-quality five-second video can consume more than 3.4 million joules, equivalent to running a microwave for longer than an hour.
WATER USE
Similar to your phone or computer, the servers processing AI requests get hot. Data centers use water-based cooling methods to prevent their servers from overheating.
The US Data Center Energy Usage Report found US data centers consumed 66 billion liters of water in 2023, much of which was lost to evaporation. That’s the same amount needed to irrigate about 11,000 acres of almonds for a year—or the amount consumed by more than half a million people in the United States in one year.
Even more concerning is the dramatically accelerating trend in water consumption: Ten years ago, data centers used 21.2 billion liters of water, so their water use has tripled in that time.
PUBLIC HEALTH BURDEN
AIR POLLUTION AND PUBLIC HEALTH
The energy consumed by the AI industry—from chip manufacturing to data center operation—doesn’t just contribute to heat-trapping carbon emissions, it also generates significant amounts of air pollutants that harm human health.
Many data centers are powered by electricity from fossil fuel–powered plants, use diesel backup generators for emergency power, and are built with cement and steel—all of which generate toxic substances in the air people breathe.
Scientists at CalTech and the University of California, Riverside valued the public health burden of US data centers in 2030 at more than $20 billion per year, comparable to the health costs associated with emissions from all the vehicles on California’s roads, and four times the public health burden of AI in 2023. These costs come from the increasing number of asthma cases and other cardiopulmonary diseases caused by poor air quality. Source: Union of Concerned Scientists”Catalyst” Fall 2025
4.Water
Source: WaterWise
5. “Clothes Make The Person” The Saying Goes. But every year 4,000,000 tons of textiles are disposed of in landfills (Source: CBS News) Please think twice (or more) before buying clothes and more importantly when it comes time to dispose of your garments. While natural fibers may take only six to 12 months to break down in landfills, synthetic fibers—nylon, polyester, etc.—can take hundreds of years. Source: treehugger.com
In parts of Arizona even cotton and other natural fibers may take 100 plus years to break down in a landfill. This is because, the working or active area of the landfill has to be covered with at least one foot of soil at the end of each day. After three or four days, there is very little oxygen left in the waste to cause decomposition. Source:Editor
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