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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMichael Serpa, senior scientist at the Scottsdale Water Campus, works on water testing, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, in Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP Photo\/Ross D. Franklin)<\/p>\n
The city says the candidates\u2019 claims of \u201ctoilet to tap\u201d or untested poop water marginalize the science behind the treatment program. Less than 1% of the city\u2019s liquid waste comes from toilets, water officials said.<\/p>\n
The budget change killed a plan to add purified wastewater that exceeds federal drinking water standards directly to Scottsdale\u2019s supply by 2027.<\/p>\n
Some experts and residents said the budget change \u2014 along with a council majority that frowns upon wastewater reuse \u2014 could weaken resilience at a time when the West is mired in drought and cities are facing significant cuts from the Colorado River.<\/p>\n
Looming shortages push cities to adapt<\/p>\n
Scottsdale pioneered the wastewater recycling system in 1998. The city\u2019s recycling facility is big enough to serve 60,000 households.<\/p>\n
That expertise is vital for water officials elsewhere in Arizona who are looking to replicate the work in at least four other facilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so important to protect and reuse water in the Southwest,\u201d said Bryan Cassens, an assistant senior director for Scottsdale Water, which runs the recycling program. \u201cHere we already know it all. We\u2019ve been doing it for 28 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city of 250,000 gets 70% of its water from the Colorado River, more than any other city with the same population or larger in Arizona and California.<\/p>\n
Scottsdale Water employees said that reliance and decades of population growth pushed them to recycle to defend against drought. All wastewater is treated through intensive steps \u2014 like ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet photolysis, officials said.<\/p>\n
Some was sold to breweries to make beer. Around 7,500 people tried the water after facility tours and other events, but no residents received it through their taps at home.<\/p>\n
With the program expansion stalled, officials with Scottsdale Water said they\u2019ll be prepared to present options to the council in October.<\/p>\n
Water reuse faces uncertainties<\/p>\n
Former state lawmaker Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who is running for the city council, has been the most vocal opponent of the advanced water purification program.<\/p>\n
She and actor Rob Schneider held up a glass of clear water and a glass of brown liquid in a May campaign ad that accused her opponents of pushing Scottsdale residents to drink sewage water, which her opponents denied.<\/p>\n
A month later, the council approved the $100 million budget change.<\/p>\n
Incumbent Councilman Barry Graham said the program is costly and an \u201calarmist\u201d overreaction to drought.<\/p>\n
Water officials in Scottsdale, Phoenix and Tucson also said some new state requirements on mixing purified water into the drinking water supply \u2014 like tracking chemicals and contaminants that are not federally regulated \u2014 unnecessarily raise costs.<\/p>\n
The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality is making the new rules easier to follow but won\u2019t be finished until early 2027, said Randall Matas, who lead\u2019s the department\u2019s Water Quality Division.<\/p>\n
Despite the debates, Cassens said the facility is operating as normal.<\/p>\n
Ugenti-Rita did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Associated Press. Graham said advanced water purification would be a last resort in a water crisis, not now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t just assume that every visitor and resident is going to trust the experts and is even going to listen to the experts,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n
Half of Arizona voters worry about water<\/p>\n
The criticism in Scottsdale comes as two key barometers of the Colorado River\u2019s health \u2014 Lake Mead and Lake Powell \u2014 hit record lows this summer.<\/p>\n
A federal proposal for the Colorado River outlines combined water cuts for Arizona, California and Nevada that could serve more than 25 million people annually through 2036.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not really a good time to start being selective,\u201d said Cynthia Campbell, a former water resource management adviser for Phoenix. \u201cAre you really going to play political games with the one thing that makes it possible to live in the desert?\u201d<\/p>\n
Since last year, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has committed to investing more than $300 million in advanced water purification projects in the arid West.<\/p>\n
In Arizona, just over half of voters in the 2022 midterm election said they were \u201cvery\u201d or \u201csomewhat\u201d confident that the state would have enough water over the next 10 years, according to AP VoteCast, which surveyed more than 3,000 Arizona voters. The other half, 47%, said they were \u201cnot too\u201d or \u201cnot at all\u201d confident.<\/p>\n
Communities shouldn\u2019t abandon long-term investments in public health and sustainability for short-term gain, said Ben Grumbles, the executive director of Environmental Council of the States, a nonpartisan group of state and local environmental agency leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can be frustrating when there are politicians scoring a cheap, fast point,\u201d Grumbles said. \u201cI hope that over time, the facts will bear out.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Associated Press journalist Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux in Washington, D.C., contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) \u2014 A Phoenix suburb ditched a plan to send recycled water from toilets and other…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":907606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-907605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/907606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}