As classical piano music offers a backdrop, and a half-dozen horses and their riders walk down middle Tanque Verde Creek, Tucson Water Director John Kmiec says on video:
“Water is the foundation of our existence. It is the very essence of what makes life possible, sustaining everything however big or small, especially here in the beautiful Sonoran Desert.
“While two-thirds of the planet is covered by water, only about 1% is available to drink or as food. We must take steps to care for it, not just for us but for future generations as well.”
The video, nearly six minutes long, explains and promotes the utility’s One Water 2100 Plan. Adopted Oct. 17 by the Tucson City Council, the plan aims to set a course for how Tucson will manage its limited water supplies over the next 77 years.
...
But the plan contains no details about how to preserve or restore riparian areas. It deals mainly with protecting existing drinking water supplies from contamination, how to get more supplies, and how to curb water demand to create a “Sustainable Oasis.” To the activist Watershed Management Group, which for more than a decade has advocated and worked on the ground to restore the Tucson area’s long-diminished riparian areas, the new plan contains a clear inconsistency between stated goals and actual measures.
New Tucson plans lack measures to bring back vanished river flows, critics say