Westside Water

Under category of Giving Away the Farm, our Water Authority has opened multiple new water pressure zones for an unprecedented round of new westside sprawl. Some get this perfectly. From the Albuquerque Journal:

Cadigan said the economic development argument was a thinly veiled plan to provide water service for homes in previously closed water zones. That, he said, violates a yearlong policy of not opening more than one water pressure zone at a time for development.
The approval immediately opens four zones and gives a green light for three more in the future.
"Tesla can open with the water they have now," Cadigan said. "I think the whole Tesla thing is a red herring."
But County Commission chairman and water board member Alan Armijo said Westland had followed proper procedures and was complying with a policy to ensure the water authority pays no net cost for new services.
"We're not breaking any policy, we're following policy," Armijo said Thursday.
Although the councilors had some "valid concerns," Armijo said, it is up to the City Council to address growth, not the water board.

That covers it. Proper procedures were followed. And those procedures were devised to disconnect growth and water so that no one is responsible. Armijo's quote is straight out of the playbook. The Water Authority model was adopted by our legislature and two local governments precisely because it got the utility out from under any planning responsibility. The model was Nevada. Patricia Mulroy, the Water Empress, brags that planning and growth management are not her problem. The authority is simply meeting market demand. Which is why northern rural Nevada groundwater will soon be pumped and piped to southern urban Nevada - to benefit homebuilders.

Comments

[Ghost of Julia]

A recipe for SPRAWL BUBBLES
- Take some relatively flat land in the fast growing west
(the plains in the midwest don’t have that economic ZING)

- trim any natural drainage by channelization
(don’t be shy with that concrete!)

- add as much potable water as you can
(4 – 7 water zones ought to do it)

- use just a pinch of regulation
(or none, depending on political taste)

And Viola! You’ve got a sprawl bubble! Of course some of the best is made in Nevada, but they used soooo much of that subprime yeast how could they not be Number 1 in the nation with 1 foreclosure for every 200 households?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20364043/