BOUSE, Ariz. — Two wells, one old and one new, face each other from both sides of Plomosa Road in this remote town in Arizona’s western desert.On a recent Friday, the chainlink gate at the old well was closed, displaying mottled, weather-beaten signs that read, “Bouse Worley Water, Keep Out.” The gate at the new well was wide open, and two dozen Bouse community members were pacing inside to see the future source of their drinking water.“Thank you to the people of this district for seeing our vision for the future. We will now have clean and healthy water for decades,” said Renee Townsend, president of the Bouse water district’s board. The tour of Bouse’s new well marked an end in the community’s decadelong struggle to save its decaying water system and bring clean water to residents’ homes. In 2006, the arsenic levels in the water of Bouse’s tiny water co-op exceeded new federal standards. At the same time, the co-op’s nearly 50-year-old well and pipe system was nearing the end of its useful life.Regulators threatened to fine or close the co-op, and the district’s infrastructure threatened to fail. Community members realized they would need to replace the entire system, an inconceivable cost for a co-op with roughly 140 customer accounts.A handful of community members, most of them retirees, engaged with regulators and contractors to rebuild the tiny community’s water system. Working without the support of a well-staffed local government, the impromptu team converted the legal designation of their co-op, won state and federal grants, and oversaw the construction of an entirely new well and pipe network.The celebration brought together the water district’s customers for a grand reveal of the new system. Residents crowded over hot dogs and burgers while jabbing one another with jokes and stories. The group filled up Bouse’s one-room community center, only a two-minute walk from the wells.Speaking to the audience, Mike Krebs, the vice president of environmental water at PACE Engineering who helped guide the project, thanked community members for their collaboration on the project.“We’re just grateful to be a part of this and be a part of the community, thank you,” Krebs said. “Thank you!” one community member called out in response.Arizona’s west desert:A California company wants to use Arizona groundwater to make ‘green hydrogen’ fuelWater in the canal, but not for the townBouse is a stubborn bastion of humanity in a world of creosote, mountains and cows. The town is a low-lying cluster of mobile homes along State Route 72, north of Interstate 10 and a little ways east of the Arizona-California state line. In the late 19th century, Bouse was a railroad town, shipping ore from mines in the desert mountains.Today, the locals fan out into the same mountains on their all-terrain vehicles, collecting rare rocks and redwood railroad ties from the abandoned mine shafts. Meanwhile, Saudi and American agribusinesses dip deep in the valley floors for water, which their animals turn into eggs and milk for distant markets. The only man-made structures that break the desert skyline are colossal, shining henhouses. Bouse has two seasons, summer and winter. A hardy core of year-round residents endure the heat, while a larger contingent of snowbirds migrate to Bouse for cooler times. Summers can be so quiet that even the Bouse American Legion closes down for the season. Most Bouse residents, part-time or full-time, are retired. Bouse Elementary School has fewer than 50 students, about half of whom are the children of workers at nearby farms. Though the Central Arizona Project canal cuts through the desert only a few miles from town, Bouse relies entirely on groundwater. A portion of the town uses water from the local water district, while the rest use their own wells.Accustomed to working on large, complex systems, personnel from project contractor Felix Construction said the project was the company’s first time building an entirely new public water system from source to tap. “A lot of times, we do projects in the city of Phoenix and the …
See the full article on Arizona zoning regulations, or, read more Arizona real estate investing news. It’s up to you!