By: Lisa Shipek and Catlow Shipek
Newsflash: Tucson will be building its first facility to turn recycled wastewater into drinking water. This project — often referred to as “toilet-to-tap” — seemed like a distant future until last week’s announcement.
The entire project will be funded by the Bureau of Reclamation, which is covering the costs as part of a negotiation to forgo a portion of Tucson’s Central Arizona Project allocation and with the goal of reducing our dependence on the Colorado River Water.
WMG thinks this is a good project to help shift towards a hydro-local community and expand renewable local drinking water supplies without increasing our debt to build expensive infrastructure.
Required cuts to Colorado River water are coming for all users. Even if other cities are slow to respond, our efforts show proactive leadership and willingness to partner for the health of the Colorado River.
To achieve WMG’s vision for a hydro-local Tucson, we need to be less dependent on the Colorado River. The reasons are twofold: both for our local resilience due to diminishing Colorado River supplies and to be good stewards of the river itself.
Reusing water multiple times locally allows us to extend the use of our limited water supplies. The “direct potable reuse” treatment is proven technology to create water that meets EPA clean drinking water standards. Treating recycled water also diversifies local water supplies in the face of increasing PFAS contamination in local groundwater wells.
Tucsonans continue to grow our conservation behavior and culture, with the gallons of water used per day by Tucson Water customers continuing on a downward trend, now at an all-time low of 74 gallons GPCD. WMG has calculated that if we drive our water use down to 40 GPCD, we could forgo Colorado River water.
WMG’s Living Lab is demonstrating how to operate entirely on rainwater supplies for indoor and outdoor water use. In 2024, we operated 100% on rainwater. Imagine if a majority of Tucsonans and local businesses also made this shift.
How does this project impact the health of our watershed and our interest in restoring flow to our rivers? Recycled water is an important source of water for our community, which is being used to enhance flows in the Santa Cruz River and help recharge our aquifers, in addition to providing water for irrigation to schools, parks, and golf courses.
As we shift to a “One Water” approach, where all water is equally valued, and recycled water can be turned into drinking water, WMG recommends we expand the dialogue about the value of recycled water. This water has been seen as less valuable, and often framed as wasted water “dumped” in the Santa Cruz River.
Recycled water is sold to schools, parks, and golf courses, at a discounted rate, far less than the cost of potable water. As our use of recycled water evolves, we recommend recycled water is valued as a community good, and used to support watershed health, with a priority for groundwater recharge and river flow. Treating recycled water for drinking water is also a high quality use. Recycled water to irrigate community amenities, like schools and parks, is also a good use. Golf courses that serve a limited clientele should be a low priority user, and pay full price for this water.
Learn how you can become hydro-local through WMG’s “How Low Can You Go” educational tour of our Living Lab and join our River Run Network to take action to restore and steward our heritage of flowing creeks and rivers.
