Forty years of careful water hedging came due on New Year’s Day. Citing Colorado River shortage triggers in its Drought Management Plan, Scottsdale stopped selling hauled water to non-residents on January 1 — and the sharpest edge of that decision landed on Rio Verde Foothills, the unincorporated community northeast of the city whose 500-plus homes had been built on trucked Scottsdale water with no utility of their own. Dry taps within sight of emerald fairways proved irresistible to every news desk on earth, and for months “Rio Verde” was global shorthand for the Southwest’s reckoning. The day page carries the full story.
The resolution was very Arizona: a negotiated standpipe deal restored deliveries through Scottsdale’s system while Rio Verde pursued a long-term supplier. Inside city limits the system held — usage fell, every commitment was kept — quiet vindication of the CAP diversification and banked supplies the city had been assembling since the 1980s. The lesson outlasted the headlines: from here on, Scottsdale growth would be priced in acre-feet.
The year’s gentler milestone was civic. The renovated Civic Center reopened, giving Bennie Gonzales’ 1968 complex its first major refresh as an events venue — a reminder, amid the drought coverage, that the city still invests in its own living room. Meanwhile the growth fight that would consume 2024 was already taking shape out by Loop 101.