Our Oro Valley neighbor Erik Shapiro's letter to The Explorer should be heeded. Water is a scarce commodity, especially here in the Arizona desert.
Eventually, Oro Valley's water will be 'all used up'
“All used up”: that’s what that the O’odham word hohokam really means. Hokam means one thing that is used up. Repeating the first syllable in the O’odham language makes it plural: “all used up.” When O’odham people referred to a ruin as Hohokam, they were not naming the people that built it, they were just describing its ruined condition. Romantic glosses such as the “vanished people” aside, hohokam just means something that is “all used up.”
Oro Valley has one place – in Honey Bee Canyon – that is officially signed as hohokam – “all used up.” In the years to come, and given present development policies, it might well be that one day an O’odham commentator would describe the whole town of Oro Valley as hohokam – “all used up.”
I applaud supervisor Ann Day’s criticism of the Oro Valley town council on open space conservation, and would appreciate her continuing oversight. With a couple of noble exceptions, the current council has demonstrated an inability to make responsible decisions without adult supervision.
Ann Day is right; Rancho Vistoso is already hohokam — “all used up.” Unless the council and their developer allies are stopped, they will make the Arroyo Grande property hohokam – “all used up” – as well.
Colorado River water is over-allocated, and Arizonans – including the town of Oro Valley — are last in line for the water. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo guarantees Mexico’s right to Colorado River water. The Native American right to Colorado River water is guaranteed by an early 20th century U.S. Supreme court ruling, the Winters Doctrine. And Arizona relinquished absolute rights to Colorado River water as part of the settlement to a lawsuit between the two states which enabled the building of the Central Arizona Project.
Oro Valley planners think they can pipe water in from the Central Arizona Project to water the lawns and feed the misters that will be distributed over the development that was Arroyo Grande. But they are wrong. By the time the water is needed, it will be hohokam – “all used up.”
Erik Shapiro
Oro Valley
2 comments:
What a wonderful, thoughtful, enlightening letter. I hope that Mr. Shapiro continues to write.
Thank you Mr. Shapiro for stating so well what we all know. There is no method of predicting how much or how little the snowpack will produce in run-off to the Colorado River in future years. Mother Nature has proven to be quite capricious!
For Oro Valley to blindy forge ahead with more development in Arroyo Grande will be at the great expense of all of us who call Oro Valley our home today!
The blind greed of the past in the government of Oro Valley must be curtailed. While we are being told that the Town only wants to have control in the planning, we are not being told what the real motives are. It reminds me of the Iraq War!
Post a Comment