Summer in Arizona has arrived and as temperatures soar, so do the number of wildfires in our State. And with our extreme drought conditions, this year’s wildfire season is expected to be more...
Flood irrigation can be a surprising sight in a desert Valley. Water comes pouring out of ditches, covering large parks, ball fields or yards in what looks like deep storm runoff. While the rest of...
Central Arizona's desert cities offer rebates, outdoor water audits, videos, free publications and landscape classes to help customers use water more efficiently outdoors. Cities also lead by...
Water is life and nowhere is that more apparent than in the desert. Fountains and pools of water were built into ancient cities, including desert cities, for both practical and aesthetic reasons....
Arizona desert cities have a distinctive style. There are few other cities where you'll find mesquite and palo verde trees in parks, giant blue agaves and golden barrel cactus in yards,...
Have you seen them? They look like big orange plastic price tags, about 1 foot by 2 feet, hanging from trees around the City of Phoenix. Handwritten on one side is the tree's type and some...
The City of Goodyear has a 500,000 gallons-per-day brine problem. That problem will only grow as the quiet little West Valley city along the Estrella Mountains expands. Goodyear is working on an...
If you want to find out how to save water and keep a little grass in the back yard, how about asking a city with more than 400 acres of Bermuda to care for? The City of Scottsdale maintains 42...
In 1986, the Town of Gilbert began storing treated wastewater in a pond at Cooper and Elliot roads. It did not surprise town officials that the pond attracted birds, but they were surprised by how...
Tempe Town Lake is a manmade lake set in a dry riverbed in the middle of the desert. The 261 acre urban lake is a surprise to newcomers and still a marvel to those who were here when it was first...
In 2000 the City of Phoenix began digging piles of trash, tires, appliances, and hulks of old cars out of a 5-mile section of the Salt Riverbed that had served as a dump for decades. Today, the Rio...
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...
Valley 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...
As 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...
Two companies contain and clean contaminated groundwater under the Phoenix Goodyear Airport located in the west Valley. That's not the only good news. Now both of these companies are saving the...