For Star subscribers: A branch of the influential Moody's firm has come out with a disputed warning about long-term water supply for metro Phoenix, in stark contrast to the mostly upbeat messages of Arizona officials, business leaders and some researchers.
Tony Davis A branch of the influential Moody's firm has come out with a dire, much disputed warning for commercial real estate leaders about the Phoenix area's long-term water supply.
People are also reading… The long-term population explosion of Maricopa County — the U.S.' fastest growing county in raw numbers — will continue, they said. 'Tangible impacts on real estate markets' Moody's didn't say the Arizona Department of Water Resources restrictions would stop growth or that water is running out. But it said the type of growth will change, the area's already unaffordable housing will get more so, and developers and cities will have to get more creative to accommodate a shrinking water supply.
"From data centers that rely on water for cooling to industrial facilities which often use water for their processes, these properties may face substantial increases in operating costs due to water scarcity in the coming decades." "But if you're talking about 100% of Maricopa County's projected population will have to worry about water, I completely reject that. I think that’s a gross overstatement," she said.
"The context of how much water is available or will be available, whether we call that stress or extreme stress depends on the metrics we use," said Famiglietti."It's the reality of the desert. It's a high stressed area and it will be more stressed. We just have to come to terms with it." Given the limited areas of the county where pumping will lower the aquifer beneath allowable levels,"the model ultimately shows that our water future is secure and the Assured Water Supply program is working," the governor told reporters.
But the new rules and the model carry"a lot of implications for the commercial real estate industry," said author Natalie Ambrosio Preudhomme, associate director of Moody’s Analytics' commercial real estate leadership team. Generally, the viability of the commercial real estate industry is affected by larger real estate market trends, she said —"especially when we look at things like multi-family and hotels, both their market value and property prices.
Humans have been able to adapt and prove themselves resilient to wildfires and water shortages, she noted. Plenty of examples exist of companies getting more creative in their water use and individuals improving their water use efficiency, she said. "The headline for Moody's report is a story about 'water stress strikes developers.' But the way water supply rules work, the development can continue in places that have sufficient water supplies," Porter said."Those are cities with assured water supply designations from the state. Moody's has framed it that 'this is going to freeze development' in places where it isn't going to.
But a third Kyl Center researcher, Kathleen Ferris, while agreeing that the new state development limits are a huge step forward, noted that the Colorado River is already stressed, that the CAP won't escape at least some future cuts, and that the state's model shows groundwater supplies are overallocated.
While Phoenix isn't running out of water, it and all Arizona are clearly losing water each year, to long-term drying, to groundwater depletion and to current and future CAP cutbacks, researcher Famiglietti said. The aquifer is expected to fall about 185 feet from the end of 2021 to the end of 2121, it said. It's dropped about 92 feet since before the turn of the 20th century.
Ferris, a former ADWR director, pointed to a new agency slide that drives the aquifer's bleak future home visually. The slide shows a near straight line, illustrating its stability from 1980 through 2020. Then, the line drops at a 45-degree angle for the next 100 years.Expert: Conservation can make up the gapPorter of ASU's Kyl Center noted the projected total 4.9 million acre-foot groundwater shortfall by 2121 amounts to only a 40,000 acre-feet gap annually.
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