Our speaker last week was Glenn Williamson, Founder and CEO of the Canada Arizona Business Council.  Mr. Williamson presented an overview of water and water planning issues facing Arizona as well as the history of the long and significant relationship between Canada and Arizona.  Some key takeaways from his presentation.

 

Arizona has enough water to meet our current and future needs.  Arizona currently uses less water than we did 50 years ago.  We need to consider pricing water as the commodity it is .  Epcor is owned by the City of Edmonton, Alberta.  Water planning in Arizona is tied to a 4-year election cycle instead of a 25-30 year planning cycle.  The amount consumers pay for water in Arizona is about 1/10th the actual cost of providing that water. If we are to continue with both Agriculture and population growth, new sources of water will need to be acquired.  This can include finding ways to economically treat water already here which is not currently potable or useful for irrigation as well as developing sources of water in other areas.  Arizona currently recaptures and reuses about 78% of its water.  TSMC is working on a system to recycle and reused 100% of the water at its new FAB in North Phoenix.  This may lead  to technology which will be useful to Arizona as we work on making the best use of our water resources.  

 

Canadian investment in Arizona is very significant with many Canadians having decades of experience either living in Arizona or having 2nd home here.  Mr. Williamson also founded the Wings & Wheels event in Scottsdale, which has turned into a major source of funding in support of dependents of Luke AFB.

 

 

Last week's program was brought to you by Mayor Meck and his magic rolodex.  Thanks Mayor for arranging another first class program for Rotary.