Street lights, water worries, and other news

Here’s a quick summary of some news you might be interested in:

Via Joaquin Vences

La Paz County
The Board of Supervisors approved a new console (made by Motorola) for 911 Central Dispatch at a cost of over $37,000. They’re dealing with more calls now, according to the Sheriff’s Department. (Example: Last week’s storms overloaded Dispatch.) The Board also approved a new air conditioning unit for the County Jail; the old one is 20 years old and is running at 50% capacity. The Sheriff said a Public Works building in Parker South needs a new generator too, but said he knows funds may not be available right now.

Town of Parker
Streets and streetlights were on the agenda at the Town Council’s recent meeting August 5th. The Town entered into an agreement with APS to provide power (like most other cities have). It’ll cost about $42,000 per year, plus around $660 per month for maintenance. The Town will also be looking to rejuvenate some street surfaces with chip seal for pavement preservation at a cost of about $211,000. Streets to get the treatment: Ocotillo, Navajo, Arizona, 11th, 12th, 14th, 15th and 16th. (Also: WACOG will be taking over a storage room at the Parker Community/Senior Center and turning it into an office. They’ll pay the town $120 per month.)

Mohave County
The Board of Supervisors are considering building a Mohave County ‘campus’ at the junction of I-40 and Highway 95 north of Lake Havasu City. It would include a Sheriff’s station, a morgue, and possibly an animal shelter or County warehouse. The board will also talk about where to put a new courthouse at more than $20 million.

Lake Havasu City
Gallagher’s Pub on McCulloch Boulevard – which has been serving alcohol since 1978 – took out a $100,000 loan to change its liquor license after failing the audits that require 40 percent of its sales to be food. But it sits next to Abundant Grace Church, and some city leaders are saying it needs to be more than 300 feet away. The bar owner says he can’t afford to lose the $100,000 and not get the license. Wouldn’t the state consider him ‘grandfathered in’?

Inland Empire
Officials in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties are saying it would take multiple more years of drought before they halt new construction because of water shortages. One California city has done so, but the Inland Empire will continue to build.

Speaking of drought
A widely-reported statistic says that, in the past 10 years, 17 trillion gallons of water has been lost from the Colorado River system. As we know, the entire southwestern U.S. relies on our river for its water supply, including about 40 million people. The figure includes the drying up of the underground aquifers. The Metropolitan Water District, Central Arizona Project, Denver Water and the Southern Nevada Water Authority have now signed a conservation agreement that hopes to save as much water as possible. (People are being told to be ready for “toilet-to-tap”, “showers to flowers”.) But what really works to reduce water usage is higher prices: Los Angeles authorities are considering rate hikes. Might this approach be adopted by other California and Arizona cities?

Speaking of rate hikes
San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, just south of San Clemente, is to be dismantled at a cost of $4.4 billion (the most expensive decommissioning in the history of nuclear power). It’ll take 20 years to restore the site. Meantime, Southern California Edison is raising rates, and getting some power from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix. Will the greater demand for that energy raise energy rates in Arizona too?

Rainfall
And finally, some good news: the Parker area received another half-inch of rainfall overnight, bringing the total over the past couple of weeks to around 3 inches (the majority of our annual average). And this time, it came without lots of flooding!

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