Tony Davis

1 week ago | tucson.com | Tony Davis

The proponent of building at least one data center on Tucson's far southeast side is negotiating with Tucson Water to have an 18-mile pipeline built to carry reclaimed, treated sewage effluent to the project, two Pima County supervisors say. A company negotiating with county officials would pay to build this line as a way to ensure the project doesn't drain Tucson's drinking water supply, said Supervisor Matt Heinz, whose district ends about a mile west of where the data center would be located.

1 week ago | tucson.com | Tony Davis

The rate of water losses in the seven-state Colorado River Basin has tripled in the past decade, mainly due to intensifying groundwater over-pumping in southeast and northwest Arizona, a new study finds. The study, written by researchers at Arizona State University and elsewhere, explored the magnitude and causes of water losses in rivers and aquifers along with melting snows and moisture in soils.

2 weeks ago | tucson.com | Tony Davis

Optimism is a rare breed in Arizona water politics, filled as it is with intractable conflicts over overstressed aquifers and a declining Colorado River. But Arizona water chief Tom Buschatzke offered some hope for the currently stalled, seven-state Colorado River negotiations. He went so far, at a University of Arizona water conference, as to say he's now optimistic about the negotiations' current state.

2 weeks ago | tucson.com | Tony Davis

For the second year in a row, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs is blasting Republican legislative leaders for what she said is inaction and "stonewalling" on rural groundwater legislation.

1 month ago | tucson.com | Tony Davis

As saguaros across the Sonoran Desert suffer from the combined stresses of extreme heat and extended drought, researchers say these climate changes threaten the large saguaro forests we see across Southern Arizona and Northern Sonora. A new study finds that severely hot and dry weather dramatically increased saguaro mortality at two ends of the Sonoran Desert in 2020 and 2021 and that generally, the health of saguaros and other desert vegetation has declined significantly.