Tempe Lgbt Ordinance & Sustainability - Water reuse

>>> Coming up next on "Arizona Horizon" -- Tempe joins a list of Arizona cities with ordinances protecting LGBt community. >>> And the use of effluent as a framework for water sustainability in the state. That next on "Arizona Horizon." >>> "Arizona Horizon" made possible by contributions from the friends of 8, members of your Arizona PBS station. Thank you. >>> Good evening. Welcome to "Arizona Horizon." I'm Ted Simons. A new poll shows 45% of Arizonans support gay marriage. 32% of those questioned say they do not support same-sex marriage but would be in favor of civil unions. The survey also shows that 70% agreed with the governor's decision to veto a controversial bill that would have allowed discrimination against gays and lesbians. >>> One day after the veto of Senate bill 1062 the city of tempe passed an ordinance protecting against discrimination. Among those leading that effort, Tempe council members Corey woods and Kolby Granville. >> Thanks for having us. >> what exactly does this ordinance do? >> One thing it does is protects the LGBt community as well as veterans when it comes to housing, jobs. You can have a fine levied up to $2500 for an infraction. It tries to codify things that had been set into motion by previous councils in terms of openness when it comes to city contracts. When people come to Tempe it makes sure they will not be fired for being gay or discriminated against for being gay or a military veteran. >> religion, age all on the same level? >> That's right. There's a usual list of -- from the 1970s or '80s you see the race, national origin, you go down the list, gender. The thing that I think is exciting not just in Tempe but across the United States is that we now understand that that list from the '70s or '80s is incomplete. We're doing the finishing work now to add *** orientation, gender identity as well as veteran status to that list of usual suspects. >> city employment. Was this always in place regarding city employment or was it something that need to be codified along now with private development, private employment? >> This was something we have long had in practice in terms of our city of Tempe policies but we felt it needed to be codified into ordinance and extended further but also mainly to make a statement. We have unfortunately been on parody shows for years for things that we don't like to highlight. This is one of the things I think will obviously show the other side of Arizona, people who don't share some of the opinions we have seen by some of our legislators. >> how did this start? >> It went back -- I have been on council about two years. The initial thing that brought it to my mind was was the buys buy vote about a years ago. I talked to our allies and friends and looked at that. Talked to our legal council. That led to discussions for Corey an I about what sort of things that looked like they are within the purview what we can and should do. The human rights campaign came out with a quality index about six months ago, they rated Phoenix 100%, as a matter of fact. Tempe did very, very well. We were in the high 70s, the third highest in the state of Arizona. We thought, this is our shopping list. They have told us what the new normal is and it's time we rose to the challenge. >> Exactly. One of the things -- we were actually 72. Tempe is known for being a very progressive community. A lot of folks contacted folks like us and said I'm surprised Tempe has that low of a score. We immediately started looking at doing things that would not only raise the score but extend benefits and protections to people that have deserved them for quite some time. >> protects contracts. Explain that. >> You have to prove when you're doing business with the city of Tempe that you're not discriminating against people for LGBt, veteran status, age, race, some of the things we have come to know. We don't impose criminal penalties but we do have civil penalties. We're not trying to really fine people. We're trying to educate people about the process, which is why this ordinance doesn't go into effect until march 29. >> Religious organizations. How are they affected? >> Religious organizations aren't. This is different than SB1062 where your religious understanding is a personal, private thing. In Tempe we're talking about a structured organization. If the organization itself, if there's something about that that is contrary to the believes of that group they could still be excluded. If a church wanted to exclude someone based on their boulevard system this is different than 1062, which said I'm a religion of one and I'm going to do X, Y, Z. >> Associations in general? >> We looked to Phoenix, Tucson, peer city, San Francisco, said what have they frankly dealt the bugs out of a little bit. It's one thing to get to a new normal. It's another thing to open yourself up to litigation. >> There's been concern regarding bathroom policies in the past. How does this address those? >> It doesn't have anything -- I think the bathroom bill was something that was just an unfortunate way the Phoenix ordinance was characterized. It protects people when it comes to public accommodation, employment, housing issues. The realty is people when -- Kolby made a comment in the paper that people can sort of think what they want but the realty is when you come to Tempe you're not allowed to act on certain things, not allowed to tell someone they can't purchase something in your store because they are gay or lesbian. That's a very important message to send, especially in the year 2014. >> school districts, apply there? >> It doesn't, no. >> Okay, as far as implementation, are we looking at a cost factor here? >> That's a great question. One of the things we both talked about, we talked with Phoenix, Tucson, other places, what is this costing you? How many suits are being brought forward? Is this a 5,000 or $50,000 a year item? Those cities the first step when something is brought forward to go to mediation, to go to a chance for people to sit down at a table and educate. Our goal is not to punish people but to get a city that's inclusive. What we found is in the case of Phoenix and Tucson costs were minimal. Thousands of dollars if at all. >> Maybe they have had one or two cases that have gone to mediation but one of the things we had to talk to the business community about, the tourism community up front, we have not seen a rash of lawsuits against small businesses that have put them out of business. Frankly these things have gone to place. They have been enacted smoothly and you get maybe one, two, three cases at most that have reached the mediation stage. >> what public input did you have? Were there hearings? What did you hear? >> That's one of the things that's the most exciting part about Tempe which makes Tempe unique from the legislature, unique from the case of the city of Phoenix where they had 500 people speak. Passing it in Tempe was a yawn. It was 7-0 vote. There was no one who showed up to speak against it. It's a point of pride to say we're already there. This is just a codification of the beliefs we have had for quite a while. >> back to something you said earlier, when you come to Tempe there are certain things you can do and can't do. Why not, go back to 1062, why not protect those who have sincerely held beliefs against doing X, Y, or Z in the public square? >> As Governor Brewer even talked about in her veto there are currently state laws that protect people that have sort of religious freedom built into them. Senate bill 1062 was sort of excess. Actually repeating something that actually was already on the books. From my perspective, there can be basic religious protections and we outline them in our ordinance. At the same time we don't want John saying because of my religion I'm not going to pick someone up in a cab or sell them a cake. That's not the kind of Tempe our residents want. >> yet those who supported 1062 will say people should not be forced to act against their faith, their sincerely held beliefs. How do you apply that to an ordinance like this? >> I have heard that argument before with slavery, with roles of women. With roles of minorities, with the roles of -- the sincerely held beliefs argument has been used since the beginning of time. Of course the difficulty is sometimes you're just on the wrong side of history. I think that's the case here. That's going to be ultimately the case with 10 2. What you think is your own business. But when you interact in the public sphere we have certain social Morse of the way people should be treated. >> you mentioned you called it a yawner as far as getting it through the council. Have you heard anything since the ordinance passed? >> I have gotten three emails. Imagine a city of 165,000, I got three emails. >> I got none. It may have sounded easy as it relates to our public meetings but a lot of work was done in advance to meet with groups like the chamber, the tourism office, a lot of people, equality groups, equality Arizona, the HRC, to get support for this in advance, to work out all the language issues. Frankly there was a lot of work done by councils past. Juliano was a paragon in terms of -- people like Neil and folks before us, a lot of councils work to make sure by the time this came to pass it was easy to get through. >> gentlemen, good to you on the program. Thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> At the entrance of bullhead city's community park on state route 95 is a marker honoring northeastern Arizona's vital relationship with the Colorado River. for nearly 30 years in the mid 1800s commercial steamships served the mining communities of northern Arizona hauling supplies from as far down river as Yuma. Cargo was unloaded at nearby partyville, often returning downstream with barge lots of ORE. Bullhead rock was located just upstream. The escarpment was used as a navigation marker and the point where Mojave Indians forded the river. It was submerged in 1953 with the building of Davis dam. Today the Colorado is still bullhead city's life blood. Jet skis have replaced the steamships and NFC's casinos across the river have replaced mines. Mining tourists' wallets instead of ORE from the mountains. >>> ASU's decision center for a desert city release add report on water reuse in central Arizona recently and how best to use effluent as part of the state's water sustainability plans. Dave white is the co-director and joins us. Good to have you. >> great to be here. >> what is decision center for desert city. What's that all about? >> Thank you for asking. We're a unit of the global institute of sustainability at ASU. So it's a research center. We're focused on the issues of water sustainability and helping to improve the decisions that are made about the future of this critical resource in our state. >> This report now is water reuse in central Arizona. Talk about the report an how you would like to see it used. >> Welshing the report was developed by our research center, authored I should say by Arianna Miguel, ray clay and myself. The focus of the report is to continue and stimulate an ongoing dialogue in the policy community about issues critical to water sustainability for the future of our state. So there have been a number of reports from places like the Morrison institute for public policy, from the governor's office, had a blue ribbon panel on water sustainability. We're trying to continue that dialogue and push the conversation about particular critical issues in this case the idea of water reuse. >> let's get a definition here. What does water reuse mean? >> Well there have been times in the past where wastewater, the water produced as a waste product from homes and businesses, was thought of as just that, a waste product to be disposed of, but increasingly communities around the United States are seeing this as a critical resource to be reused for beneficial purposes including industrial purposes, urban irrigation, agricultural irrigation, ground water recharge. Other purposes. So it's seen as an important management strategy to stretch our existing water supply. >> I used the word effluent like I know what it is. Give me a definition. >> it's a treatment, type of water that has been wastewater that's been treated to a particular standard. So we can talk about wastewater that flows from homes and businesses, goes to wastewater treatment plants. That water can be treated to a variety of different qualities or levels for different types of uses. For uses on golf courses, in lakes and ponds and fountains, or it can be treated to higher level uses that involve human contact. It can also be treated to the level of indirect potable reuse where we're adding not treated effluent to other water supplies and then eventually reusing that for human consumption. >> can you use effluent for recharging aquifers? >> Absolutely we can. That's one of the important uses of our municipal effluent is to use that water. We inject it into what's called the VADOS zone. We let it percolate down through the ground into the ground water supply and it's purified by natural processes in that way. It's an excellent way to take excess water through the wastewater system and recharge those. >> I know golf courses and irrigation, we're seeing treated water there. Burr are we actually seeing this ground water recharged right now with effluent? >> Yes. This is occurring now in Arizona. It's one of the major uses of the treated effluent foreground water recharge. The biggest uses are for irrigated agriculture. Treating it to a certain standard then it can be applied to crops such as cotton, it can also be used for urban irrigation for lawns and golf courses. Can be recharged to the aquifer or used for industrial cooling processes such as at the Arizona public service nuclear generating station. >> I would imagine that important plant uses a lot of water. Is a lot of it effluent? Treated water? >> Absolutely not. fact they take about 80,000 acre feet of water, an acre foots is the amount of ward used to flood one acre of land to the depth of one foot or the amount that would be used for two households a year in Arizona. 80,000 acre feet a year going to the Palo Verde nuclear generating station for their cooling purposes. They are one of the largest users, one of the largest nuclear power plants not located on a permanent body of water. It's an excellent example of how we can put it to use to support power generation in our community. >> from your report it sounded like the cost concerns are there, but they are there for an interesting reason in that competition for water kind of finds its own level, if you will, and impacts everything. >> Absolutely. What we're seeing is the potential for increased competition, increased cost for municipal effluent into the future. One of the important things we try to achieve in this report is to set up a policy dialogue to encourage a conversation just with our raw water or surface water supplies from the salt and verde river systems. We want people to have an open, transparent dialogue about what are the best and highest uses for this effluent. Should we be using it to support the golf course industry in north Scottsdale? That provides important milk benefits and tourism dollars. Should we use it for cooling the power plant? For recharging the aquifer? Just like regular water supplies we'll come to a place where we don't have enough water for every beneficial purpose. >> indeed back to the cost, if something happens, if the competition means all of a sudden ground water winds up cheaper than effluent, that's not a good thing. >> right. We want to in the central Arizona area encourage policies, behaviors, incentivize the conner vacation of our ground water and the main -- for the state does just that. It's one of the most progress elf ground water conservation laws in the country. We want to keep that supply as a buffer for times of drought and to mitigate and adapt to the potential impacts of climate change. >> I was going to ask about that. How much was that factored into what you guys were reporting on? >> We were considering that very carefully. One of the reasons we wrote this report is that several commissions, boards and other reports have focused on the issue of climate change. One of the common conclusions is we must increase the amount of water reuse as a strategy to deal with potential supply deficits into the future that may occur as a result of climate change impacts or drought or population growth. So while we agree wholeheartedly with this as a primary policy goal, we want to point out some of the challenges that we need to address. Thinking about competition, thinking about cost, thinking about dealing with the increasing concern over contaminants like pharmaceuticals and other contaminants in the wastewater supply. Let's deal with those now so that we can use this important supply. >> are we dealing with those now? >> Yes, absolutely there are a number of important organizations both at the university and in the cities and in the regulators, department of water resources who are focused on exactly those concerns. What are the appropriate levels for things like pharmaceuticals that are making their way into that wastewater supply? We're able to detect those at afternoon smaller concentration now but we yet have developed environmental quality standards for many of those pharmaceuticals either at the federal or state level. >> last question here. This involves perception. Is it a concern and is it an issue with the yukk factor, if you will, the fact that folks hear effluent they hear wastewater, treated water. Get that stuff away from me. >> I think one thing that's changing is Arizonans are increasingly coming to grips with the idea we should use the appropriate water quality for the appropriate use. We don't need to use our potable water supply for watering our lawns, for instance or our golf courses. I think people are really coming to grips with there are different qualities of water including treated wastewater that makes sense to use in different purposes. Will we reach a point where like in California an Florida we come to a place of direct potable reuse, where we treat that wastewater and return it directly to the drinking water treatment plants for delivery to households? It's possible. It's not in the immediate future, but it's possible. I think people will come to grips with that over time. >> all right, great information. Good to have you here. >> Thanks for having me. >>> Tomorrow on "Arizona Horizon," our weekly political update with the Arizona Capitol Times and we'll look at a new report on the economic self-sufficiency of low income Arizona women. on the next "Arizona Horizon." >>> That is it for now. I'm Ted Simons. Thank you so much for joining us. You have great evening. >>> "Arizona Horizon" is made possible by contributions from the friends of 8, members of your Arizona PBS station. Thank you. >>> Welcome. I'm Jason Meyers with Debra Ostriker. 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