By Tom Scanlon | Scottsdale Progress
If 1,000 or so Rio Valley Foothills residents were on an Oct. 26 email chain, they would have whooped for joy and toasted with raised glasses of water.
The relatively inexpensive Scottsdale water they enjoyed for three decades appeared headed to continue on a stable path.
In an Oct. 26 email to Mayor David Ortega, City Manager Jim Thompson and City Council, Brian Biesemeyer – executive director of Scottsdale Water – said discussions to keep water flowing to Rio Verde Foothills were highly promising.
He said he was negotiating with EPCOR, a private utility company, on a deal “which would involve receiving CAP (Central Arizona Project) water from EPCOR that Scottsdale would treat and transport.”
Noting it might take years for EPCOR to build its own filling station, Biesemeyer said the agreement “would allow EPCOR customers to use our fill station at Jomax and Pima Road.”
He asked for authority to sign an agreement with the utility company “in late December or early January.”
Christy Jackman, Kim Waldum and others who live in the unincorporated county land just outside Scottsdale’s northeast borders read the email – but not until after the city shut off their water on Jan. 1.
