1. Greater Phoenix Green Infrastructure & LID Handbook.
Greater Phoenix Green Infrastructure Handbook: Low Impact Development (LID) Details for Alternative Stormwater Management
The Greater Phoenix Green Infrastructure Handbook: Low Impact Development (LID) Details for Alternative Stormwater Management (LID Handbook) is now available for public and private sector use!
The LID Handbook includes guidance and technical standard details and specifications for select LID techniques, so local design, planning, and development professionals can more easily integrate green infrastructure (GI) and LID in new and/or retrofit projects throughout Maricopa County. LID techniques included in the Handbook:
- Biorention planters
- Bioretention systems
- Bioswales – vegetated or rock
- Curb extensions
- Curb openings
- Domed overflow structures
- Permeable pavements
- Sediment traps
- Stormwater harvesting basins
For almost two decades, Arizona has experienced drought conditions, raising concerns about water availability, use, and conservation. The use of GI and LID can provide many benefits onsite and to the surrounding communities and watershed, such as:
- mitigating localized flooding
- harvesting stormwater to offset potable water use for outdoor use
- providing water to surrounding landscapes
- reducing non-point source pollutant loads and erosion
- increasing rainfall and runoff infiltration into soils
- recharging groundwater
- preserving and improving natural wildlife and habitat
- beautifying surrounding streetscape
- reducing heat-island effect
- improving the health of the local watershed
The LID Handbook is a collaborative project of the SCN Green Infrastructure Specs & Standards Workgroup, created to benefit all communities in the Greater Phoenix Metro region. To make the Handbook a reality, the City of Scottsdale received grant funding from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) 604(b) grant program and the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority (WIFA) Technical Assistance Fund. The City also contributed funding and grant management to the project. With stakeholder and review support of eight Phoenix area municipalities, and the guidance of a core team comprised of the cities of Scottsdale and Phoenix, SCN and the Flood Control District of Maricopa County, the LID Handbook is now available for voluntary use throughout Maricopa County.
LID Handbook Download
https://static.sustainability.asu.edu/giosMS-uploads/sites/22/2019/01/LID-2018-Book.pdf
2. Payson Will Make Water History.
Come April, Payson will make water history.
But the rest of the state is confronting a scary shortage.
Still, Payson water guru Buzz Walker is not planning anything special. He just wants to make sure his shiny $14 million water treatment plant works smoothly.
After 20 years, $54 million and a 25 percent hike in Payson water rates, the first splash of water from the C.C. Cragin pipeline will gush into town in early April. After making sure the town’s new, high-tech system works — the water will flow from taps all over town in June, said Walker, who heads up the C.C. Cragin project for the town. The pipeline will eventually deliver 4 million gallons of water daily.
“Nobody’s talking about a ceremony, but who knows,” laughed Walker, who started working on the project more than 20 years ago.
The town ultimately needed an act of Congress to gain a legal right to 3,000 acre-feet of water annually from the 15,000 acre-foot reservoir atop the Mogollon Rim. The town has been building the pipeline itself since 2012.
Walker feels downright parental about the project
“We’ve watched the little kid get conceived and get born. The treatment plant is a big, complex machine and now we have to find room in our heads to learn a new system.”
The complicated system will bring 3,000 acre-feet of water from a completely different watershed to Payson each year.
Mind you, Payson currently uses about 1,800 acre-feet annually, pumped out of its 42 wells — most of the wells are hundreds of feet deep.
The pipeline will supply all the town’s water needs for nine months out of the year. Even then, the town will pump an additional 1,300 acre-feet annually into the underground water table through a network of 12 wells.
The new water will insulate the town against drought, provide wastewater to keep the country club golf courses green, ensure a long-term water supply for Mesa del Caballo, recharge the town’s water table — and still provide plenty of water for Payson to grow to a town of 30,000 to 40,000.
The arrival of the C.C. Cragin water comes just as the rest of the state is struggling to figure out how to handle projected reductions in water from the Colorado River flowing into the Central Arizona Project water system.
Twenty years of drought and a century-old miscalculation in the flow of the Colorado River have left both Lake Powell and Lake Mead half empty.
If Lake Mead falls another 40 feet or so, water users throughout the West will face water rationing.
In the meantime, groundwater levels continue to fall throughout the state as headlong population growth resumes.
Arizona barely met a federal deadline to determine how it will cut water deliveries in the event the Bureau of Reclamation declares a water shortage.
The state agreed to put up millions of dollars, pay several tribes to forego water deliveries and drill new wells for farmers in declining water basins.
Arizona hopes a deal will convince California and other states to share the shortage, even though Arizona and Nevada are last in line for the water.
All that underscores the value of Payson’s secure, long-term water supply.
“I gave a talk to a water conference in Phoenix last week. The conference was the whole ‘woe is us’ thing, with all the shortages. All the big shots from Bureau of Reclamation and Senator McSally were all saying, ‘Oh, we signed the plan — yeah, we’re going to take a shortage, but we get a say.’ I was the last speaker — and I said, ‘Does anyone want to hear about a community with no water issues?’
“They got an agreement on ‘pay me now or pay me later.’ And they were sort of celebrating that. In stark contrast, here’s this little old Payson — ‘Oh, we don’t have those problems.’”
The water independence didn’t come cheaply.
Payson obtained a roughly $40 million loan from the state Water Infrastructure Finance Authority (WIFA) and about $7 million in state and federal grants.
The town also put in about $14 million raised from water impact fees on new development. Payson boosted water rates about 25 percent to ensure it had enough money coming in to pay the WIFA loans.
3. Phylogenetic analysis of West Nile Virus in Maricopa County, Arizona: Evidence for dynamic behavior of strains in two major lineages in the American Southwest. What Does This Mean? West Nile Virus (WNV) has been detected annually in Maricopa County, Arizona, since 2003. With this in mind, we sought to determine if contemporary strains are endemic to the county or are annually imported.
As part of this effort, we developed a new protocol for tiled amplicon sequencing of WNV to efficiently attain greater than 99% coverage of 14 WNV genomes collected directly from positive mosquito pools distributed throughout Maricopa County between 2014 and 2017. Bayesian phylogenetic analyses revealed that contemporary genomes fall within two major lineages; NA/WN02 and SW/WN03. We found that all of the Arizona strains possessed an amino acid substitution known to be under positive selection, which has arisen independently at least four times in Arizona. The SW/WN03 strains exhibited transient behavior, with at least 10 separate introductions into Arizona when considering both historical and contemporary strains. However, NA/WN02 strains are geographically differentiated and appear to be endemic in Arizona, with two clades that have been circulating for four and seven years. This establishment in Maricopa County provides the first evidence of local overwintering by a WNV strain over the course of several years in Arizona. Within a national context, the placement of eleven contemporary Arizona strains in the NA/WN02 lineage indicates while WNV first entered the northeastern United States in 1999, the most ancestral extant strains of WNV are now circulating in the American southwest.
4. Food Sustainability In Your Back Yard.
Are you a fan of great tasting food that has no pesticides or other chemicals? Well, it’s time to till your soil and plant your seeds and plants. Here’s a list of vegetables that need to be planted now.
– Asparagus
– Peas
– Beans
– Peppers
– Beets
– Potatoes
– Broccoli
– Tomatoes
5. Moving Forward With Naco Sewage Problem: Some Maintenance And Flow Issues Being Addressed, Officials Say.
BISBEE — Progress has been made toward addressing crossborder sewage flows from Naco, Sonora, officials say.
In a work session this week, a representative from the North American Development Bank spoke to the Cochise County Board of Supervisors about the actions the agency has taken over the last several months in order to address the transboundary flows and improve wastewater infrastructure in Naco, Sonora.
Among the strides made was the construction of a $5,000 bypass on Jan. 11, paid for by the Mexican section of the International Boundary and Water Commission. The bypass was designed to divert flows from a problematic manhole located near the international border wall west of the port of entry.
After installing monitoring systems in several of the lagoons and manholes and hiring a resident engineer to verify grade and flow directions, the NADB determined that 56 percent of the overflow was coming through that manhole, explained Robert Molina, of NADB’s grant project department.
Water levels in the manhole have been stable since the bypass, which diverts flows from west to east to relieve pressure on the weak line, said Molina.
“So, the target measurement at that point was 12 inches, and the measurement up until Feb. 10 was 16 inches, which is a very good measurement,” he said. “That has been stable since we built the bypass.”
Other actions taken by the NADB, with support and assistance from the Arizona Department of Environmental Equality and other agencies, has included contracting a vacuum truck from Nogales to clean out poorly maintained pipes to further reduce wastewater levels, installing a new manhole, and contacting a solar contractor to get an estimate on installing solar panels to provide low-cost pumping for lagoons in Naco.
The cleaning efforts resulted in the removal of some major blockages, including a cow’s head that was stuck in the International Interceptor pipeline that runs along the wall, Molina said. Cochise County officials say they are encouraged by the work that has been done since fall 2018
“I think what changed in the past few months is that after we had the leak in September, the county became more involved, and we took some proactive action, and remained in contact with ADEQ (Arizona Department of Environmental Quality) and the International Water Commission, and the other parties involved,” said Cochise County spokeswoman Amanda Baillie.
