What happens to your checking account when you take money out faster than it's going in? You are “overdrafting” and you eventually run out of money. You are not “sustainable.” The same is happening with the aquifers that Prescott, Prescott Valley and Chino Valley are pumping for their water. We are pumping more water out than what goes back in as rain, snowmelt and effluent (treated waste water).

What's the responsible thing to do when you're overspending? You find ways of cutting costs. You spend less on entertainment, buy cheaper foods, drive less, make clothes last longer. But if you are shortsighted, you start using your credit cards without paying them off at the end of the month. It's so easy to retreat into denial about the consequences: an interest rate so high that you will essentially never be out of debt, only shifting it from card to card to card. The credit cards make it seem like you're sustainable, but the reality is that you're not, and you're headed for financial catastrophe.

The Arizona Department of Water Resources has already told the tri-cities that we are not sustainable in the way we use water. We are in overdraft and, so far, the city councils remain, not only in denial, but shortsighted: with our water checking account heading toward a zero balance, their answer is to go drain another account. But the account they're after is a joint account; the other account owners are looking at our irresponsible, unsustainable spending, and they're justifiably alarmed. A recent unbiased US Geological Survey study shows that the tri-cities' plan to pump water from the Big Chino aquifer will harm the Verde River. Those joint account holders, with the help of Senator John McCain, formed the Verde River Basin Partnership (VRBP) to cooperatively examine the matter and find solutions; they, and McCain, asked the tri-cities to join.

The city councils – and the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors, by a two-thirds vote - refused to join unless they held controlling votes and thereby the outcome of any VRBP recommendation. They claimed VRBP isn't a viable organization. They said it isn't what McCain intended. But in recently asking President Bush for funding for VRBP, McCain essentially picked up the councils and supervisors by their collective ear like a recalcitrant child and admonished, “You will play nicely with the others.”

Importing water from the Big Chino looks like a good solution and it will allow us to grow into a metropolis just like Phoenix, but it is no more sustainable than overdrafting the aquifers we are already depleting, and it will seriously damage the Verde River. Vague words from the city councils, words like “mitigating” and “addressing” damage to the Verde are a comfort only to those people who care but who are not fully informed. Why not “mitigate” and “address” the aquifers we're already overdrafting? Because pumping the Big Chino is their “mitigation,” an unsustainable robbing of Peter to pay Paul. And you can be absolutely assured that, when the pumping begins impacting the Verde, “mitigating” and “addressing” will definitely not include stopping the pumping. Not one councilman or supervisor has ever said so because that, at least, is true. Nor do they have a plan to “mitigate” their pumping of the Big Chino when that aquifer eventually succumbs to overdraft.

Phone, write or email your city council and county supervisor and tell them to find a real, long-term solution that will ensure our great-grandchildren can still live here to enjoy the quality of life that brought you here and keeps you here.

In pumping the Big Chino we are failing to find solutions past the next few decades – instead, we are racking up an enormous financial debt to unsustainable growth for the sake of quick, temporary economic gain. Like the irresponsible spender who's drained his account and is now charging his credit cards, it's a path to eventual bankruptcy.

And we're killing a river on the way.

-Art Merrill