Water

[panader0]

3. Here in SE Az I worry about water quite a bit.

When I bought my 40 acre parcel in '78, I was the only person anywhere around. The seller of the
land told me that the area had enough water for 500,000 people for 500 years. The mountain creeks
ran year round and the rainfall was steady at about 17-18 inches a year. People started moving here,
I don't blame them, it's a beautiful area, and back then was growing rapidly. As a construction guy,
I depended on that growth. I had a well put in, the only well for about two miles in any direction. A
large pond on the BLM land next to mine was full nearly year round. Herons, egrets, ducks etc.
People started moving onto my road and putting in their own wells. Now, after all these years, my
single old fashioned mail box, the only mail box, has been replaced by a large metal bank of boxes
with a couple hundred boxes. Lot sizes are 4 acres at a minimum, and I still have most of my land,
so I have a lot of privacy. But the new wells go deeper then the 320 feet mine went, now up to 420 feet.
I follow the water table on the USGS web site and it's dropped 10-12 feet in the last 20 years, so
Jeannie tells me not to worry, that the water will last until I die (thanks Jeannie).
Yet the pond rarely gets full any more and the mountain creeks are currently dry. The ducks and other
big birds don't come and the frogs and toads don't rise from the deep cracks in the pond.
But, we're having a fairly good start to our summer monsoon and I won't have to water today.