The Water Wars of Arizona (2018)
I live in Arizona. The people commenting here suggesting anyone living in a desert should be &#x27;punished&#x27; and forced to live without toilets are completely out of touch with reality. Golf courses, lawns, and toilets are not the issue.<p>Rural Arizona, in the middle of nowhere in a cotton field? Yeah, you might not have well water. And that&#x27;s definitely an issue.<p>But Arizona is not going to run out of water anytime soon. We&#x27;re likely in a far better water-diverse situation than CA is already, because we&#x27;ve been thinking about water for a _long_ time and have some of the best water infrastructure in the U.S.<p>Where does it go? Arizona has 26 _million_ acres of farms and ranches, that is where:<p>- 70% of our water is directed towards agriculture.<p>- We produce 90% of the USA&#x27;s leafy greens.<p>- Our cattle industry alone produces 8 _million_ meals annually (pop. 7.1 million).<p>- 360 million eggs annually<p>- Our agriculture industry is $23.3bn, supporting 162,000 workers (40% of which are women, and 18k indigenous farmers&#x2F;ranchers),<p>We aren&#x27;t conserving water, we&#x27;re spending it because it is a valuable industry for the (unfortunately) extremely poor immigrants and others here.<p>But there aren&#x27;t signs in our bathrooms to use less water washing our hands. You don&#x27;t have to ask for a glass of water at restaurants -- because these things _don&#x27;t matter_.<p>Want to conserve water in Arizona? You&#x27;d be talking about gutting the entire state&#x27;s agriculture industry and destroying millions of people&#x27;s lives.<p>We can diversify our water supply, and we do. It&#x27;s not stupidity and lax regulation, it&#x27;s a calculated risk and choice by the people living here whose lives are built on agriculture.