AMWUA Blog
What You Flush Can Cost Cities Time And Money
Baby and facial wipes are one of the new problems for cities' wastewater systems. Just because a product is labeled flushable or disposable doesn't make it immediately biodegradable. Flushing wipes down a toilet is like flushing small cotton towels. The massive amounts of wipes being flushed every day get hung up on motors and create clogs. Any item meant to absorb liquids, such as diapers, paper ...
Jul 21 2014
Rain Harvesters Reshape Yards To Save Storm WaterSo you sit on your back porch during a good monsoon storm and watch sheets of rain fall off the edge of the roof. Where you see rain, there is a small group of people who see your watershed. These people are Rain Harvesters....
Jul 14 2014
Green Infrastructure: Can It Find A Home In The Desert?Green infrastructure is a vague name for a particular way of designing streets, sidewalks, plazas and parking lots to make better use of rainwater. Green infrastructure redirects more storm runoff into public landscaping instead of pooling on hard surfaces or rushing into underground storm-drain pipes. Its purpose is to help cool urban areas by encouraging more greenery and shade....
Jul 07 2014
Softening Water Is Tough On CitiesValley cities can treat wastewater to such a quality that it can be used to fill small fishing lakes in parks, to irrigate landscaping, and to be stored for later use in underground aquifers. This treated wastewater is aptly called reclaimed water....
Jun 23 2014
Water Shortages: The Big PictureThe drought and potential shortages of Colorado River water have everyone talking. That's good news because no one seems to pay attention to water issues if there isn't a crisis brewing. It's also the bad news because everyone--pundits, politicians and prognosticator--has an opinion, which makes it tough to determine how the pieces fit together so we can see the big picture....
Jun 16 2014
Mrs. Kelly Gets New Toilets, But Flushing Problems PersistCharlene Kelly lives on Phoenix's Westside with her daughter and a grandchild who likes to flush toilets just for the joy of it....
Jun 09 2014
Groundwater Management: Why It Still MattersIt took until June 12, 1980 for Arizona to decide it was not ok for farmers, cities, developers, and businesses to pump as much groundwater as they wanted,whenever and wherever they needed it. By that time, water users in Maricopa County were depleting 30 times the amount of groundwater that was naturally replenished through rain and snow each year....
Jun 02 2014
Myth: A Desert Garden Will Save Water and MoneyMYTH 1: A desert garden means replacing grass with ugly gravel....
May 26 2014
Storm Water: From The Streets To Your Rivers and ParksAs if you needed a good reason to pick up after your dog, here is yet one more: storm drains. Phoenix, a city of blue skies and sunshine, maintains an 895-mile storm drain system. Desert storms are few but the hard and fast rain rushes across yards, driveways, sidewalks and streets. The torrents carry away oil from dripping cars, goop from open dumpsters, fertilizers from gardens and lawns, bits o...