An Arizona water provider can't keep pace with summer demand. How concerned should we be?

Liberty Utilities, a private water provider that serves more than 20,000 homes and businesses in parts of Avondale, Glendale, Goodyear and Litchfield Park, has asked customers to voluntarily conserve water as part of a Stage 2 curtailment.

That might not seem like a big deal. We should be voluntarily saving water every day, right?

But no other water providers in metro Phoenix have moved to this higher stage, even with the hot weather and increased demand for water that Liberty says made it necessary.

Why is that?

No other water providers are in Stage 2

State law requires all water providers to have plans for how they will handle water shortages.

The requirements and triggers in these four-stage plans vary slightly, depending on the community, though in most, Stage 2 is the point where supplies have begun to diminish.

It’s typically not enough to make taps go dry, which is why most plans call for voluntary conservation at this point.

But it’s the first signal of alarm about a provider’s ability to meet demand without additional water supplies or cutbacks in use.

Liberty — which relies almost exclusively on groundwater — set a Stage 2 curtailment for when its pumping or water storage capacity falls to 80% for at least 48 consecutive hours.

And, crucially, when “a steadily declining water table, increased draw down threatening pump operations or poor water production” leads the utility to believe it cannot sustain anticipated demand.

Is this a one-off or a deeper problem for Liberty?

A Liberty spokesperson initially declined to offer details, explaining that high demand over the last week exceeded the utility’s ability to pump enough water to replenish its reservoirs.

Goodyear said in a news release that the shortfall occurred after one well went down temporarily and as construction on another planned well was delayed.

That new well should be completed within the next month, Liberty later confirmed, while another should debut next year, each providing a million gallons of extra pumping capacity per day.

(Liberty also contends that the short time an existing well went down was not a factor in moving to Stage 2.)

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Goodyear, meanwhile, has been providing water to Liberty since it moved into Stage 2 on July 9, as part of an agreement inked in 2022 to provide backup supplies.

But what does that mean?

Is this simply a confluence of unfortunate events? Or an indication of deeper problems for the utility?

It experienced delivery problems last summer

This isn’t the first time Liberty has experienced problems delivering water during the hot summer months.

Last year, customers complained about low water pressure. Some told the Arizona Corporation Commission, which oversees private utilities, that water was barely trickling out of their pipes.

Regulators take that seriously because low water pressure can allow contaminants to settle in pipes, creating a potential public health hazard.

Liberty explained to the commission over the fall and winter that even though it was adding additional service territory, it also was adding additional wells to keep pace with new demands.

It also revised its curtailment plan in May to beef up mandatory actions and flesh out more conservation details at all stages, saying it was needed to help address the pressure issue.

Groundwater is already an issue in the West Valley

So, how does that fit with what’s happening now?

Residents deserve to know, particularly given the attention on the area’s groundwater availability.

Last year, the state paused growth that relies solely on groundwater in metro Phoenix after a revised model found unmet demand for the water over 100 years, mostly in the West Valley.

An effort is underway to help undesignated water providers like Liberty prove that they have enough water from renewable sources to meet 100 years of demand.

Liberty, to its credit, captures wastewater to help replenish the aquifer it pumps, in a partnership it created about a decade ago with the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District.

But does it have the water and the requisite infrastructure to meet demand today?

The last thing Arizona needs is a black eye

Liberty may still be gathering answers on what happened this week.

But it should be more forthcoming about what it knows and doesn’t, and what it is doing to ensure it can meet demand for the long term.

If we’ve learned anything from the Rio Verde Foothills debacle last year, it’s that even a small provider’s water issues can give the full state a black eye.

And given the water challenges we face — from depleting groundwater to Colorado River supplies that could be heavily cut for cities after 2026 — that’s the last thing we need now.

Reach Allhands at joanna.allhands@arizonarepublic.com. On X, formerly Twitter: @joannaallhands.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Liberty Utilities asks to conserve water because it can't meet demand