Tim Steller's column: Credibility lost along with water in serious Tucson leak

That meant both shoes got wet as I stepped twice in the clear water on the way to pick up some babaganoush, and again on the way back to the car with my precious cargo.

I didn't bother reporting or asking about it: The Midway Wash empties into the popular Midtown restaurant's parking lot before flowing up North Belvedere Avenue to storm drains at East Pima Street, and on to the Rillito. I figured the people at Zayna knew whether it was a problem.

This turns out to have been a faulty assumption I shared with many people who crossed this stream of water over a lifespan that lasted a hard-to-explain six to seven days. Lots of people figured someone else knew what was happening and didn't make sure someone really figured it out. 

That led to a waste of maybe 1 million gallons or more of potable water, according to rough stream-flow calculations done by a hydrologist who lives nearby. If so, that would be enough water for at least 134 households for a year.  

The episode reinforced a confusion I've had before. We are told to conserve water, and many Tucsonans are conscientious about that, doing things like collecting cool water in a bucket as they wait for a shower to warm up. Due to conservation, Tucson's per capita water consumption has dropped over the decades as the population has surged. 

But then a big leak happens, or a big opportunity arises to allocate water for economic development, and the response belies a bit of casualness in the local bureaucracy about how much water we actually have. (Here I am referring, of course, to the proposed use of reclaimed water for Project Blue, the proposed southeast-side data center.) It's as if those of us who try to conserve water are suckers for bothering. 

That's a strange feeling as Arizona faces possible drastic cuts to our Colorado River water allotment and an unprecedented March heat wave that is quickly melting the snowpack the river depends on. Colorado River water is what Tucson has been consuming most since the early 2000s, and it's likely going away. 

The Midway Wash

Meg Johnson, Ann Moynihan and Heather Smith all have the Midway Wash in common, working on its encampment problems, noticing its occasional flows and stagnation. Johnson is secretary of the Garden District Neighborhood Association, which is north of Speedway in that area, while Moynihan is president of the Midway Village Neighborhood Association to the south, and Smith coordinates with the neighborhoods for Zayna.

The wash sometimes flows for a day or so when the city is flushing out a pumping station just south of Speedway, they said. But then it ends. 

Johnson said a resident tried to make a report of the leak the same day it started, March 19, but that the report didn't make it into the city's online system. The first official report made was on March 20. Subsequent reports were made on Sunday and Tuesday, according to the city's 311 system.

Residents also contacted the Ward 6 City Council office over the weekend and on Monday, March 22.

But Johnson, Moynihan and others, including former City Council candidate Jay Tolkoff, found a strange amount of confusion about the leak as they tried to figure it out.

That was due in part to the regular maintenance to the nearby well causing occasional flows, and to the fact that the city's stormwater drainage system is run by the Department of Transportation and Mobility, while the water supply system is run by Tucson Water.  

"DTM went out and nobody could find a leak," Johnson said. "At that point I started contacting the Ward 6 office."

The ward office first heard of the issue Saturday but didn't contact the Tucson Water emergency number till Monday, since some emails suggested the leak might be due to well maintenance.

Moynihan visited the site Monday and could see that the water was flowing through the stormwater drains and had no apparent connection to the well. In fact, usually when there is maintenance, a large sturdy hose is emptying the well into the stormwater drain, but there was no hose, Moynihan said.

"While I was there, a member from DTM told me it was well-water maintenance. I thought he must know what he’s talking about," she said.

When a leak is really a leak

After the election of November 2024, I wrote a column about the Republicans' sweeping victory at the national level and the Democrats' sweeping victory in Tucson and Pima County elections. The Democrats' challenge, I argued, was to demonstrate excellence in governance at the local level while Pres. Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress run the federal government. 

The local results so far have been mixed. This incident is another one showing how we're not there yet.

As it turned out, nobody really knew what they were talking about in those first few days after the leak began. It was days after the leak had started before the problem was elevated to the attention of Tucson Water's deputy director, Scott Schladweiler.

Schladweiler told me that once people realized that well maintenance was not the cause of the flow "it did require a bit of additional investigation."

Tucson Water employees went to work finding where the water flow started, but didn't locate it till Wednesday, six days after the flow started.

"Our staff actually went out, looked at every storm drain inlet and found it almost a mile away at Burns Park," just south of Rincon High School's stadium. "It was something very difficult to see and find just because of where it was located."

The leak was in a water main next to a storm drain, and hidden among overgrown vegetation. They finished fixing it on Thursday, almost a week after the leak started.

Before the repair was complete, a local hydrologist, whom I spoke with Friday, took some measurements of volume and flow. The hydrologist, who asked not to be identified by name, calculated that the flow represented at least 895,000 gallons over previous days, but the flow was already diminished at the time. Hence, the estimate that at least a million gallons flowed away.

Credibility easily lost

Of course, these aren't matters of war and peace, which we're also facing in this country. But they are issues of credibility and trust, which I know something about building, and losing, after more than 30 years in journalism.

You can write 50 correct stories, but if you really screw up the 51st story, that makes people mistrust you. 

The same goes for the city and their responses to episodes like this water leak. It was not, it appears, treated like an emergency. That leads me either to the conclusion that they're not that serious about water conservation, or that they were simply incompetent in this episode.

I'm going with the latter conclusion, casting blame on Tucson Water, the transportation department and the ward office for not treating the leak with the seriousness it merited soon enough.

Schladweiler credted community members for bringing attention to the problem, but it shouldn't fall to the people serving falafel, hummous and babaganoush to figure whether a new stream is actually a leak.