Scottsdale’s water future, yet another reason to elect Raoul Zubia
OPINION — The nation’s credit rating agencies just provided another compelling reason to elect Raoul Zubia to the city council.
Led by Councilman Barry Graham, a short-sighted city council majority defunded our Advanced Purified Recycled Water program. This dealt a dual blow to our community, undermining our physical water security and placing a direct target on Scottsdale’s coveted AAA bond rating — the premium status that keeps local taxes low.
Credit rating agencies like Fitch Ratings and S&P Global look far beyond cash reserves when grading municipal health; they heavily weight resource resilience. Analysts will now systematically penalize cities overly dependent on a single, depleting source like the shrinking Colorado River.
Conversely, these agencies explicitly identify advanced purified recycled water ("pure water") infrastructure as the premier hedge against supply risk.
By killing this vital infrastructure, the council majority signaled to Wall Street that Scottsdale lacks a viable strategy to replace lost river allocations. This failure triggers severe fiscal vulnerabilities:
- Skyrocketing borrowing costs: If Scottsdale’s AAA rating drops even one notch, interest rates on future bonds for roads, parks and safety infrastructure will surge.
- Taxpayer penalty: Higher interest rates mean millions more in debt-service costs. The city will be forced to raise property or sales taxes to fund basic services.
Turning our backs on pure water treatment doesn't save money; it forces a far more expensive scramble for dwindling water rights in the future. This is short-term political posturing traded for long-term fiscal instability.
As Arizona State University water law professor Rhett Larson explained, the most effective way to secure our water future is to make water our top priority at the ballot box. In Scottsdale, that means electing Raoul Zubia.
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