Letter: Car Wash Businesses and Water Use

According to AZ Dept of Water, car wash businesses use less water than washing your car at home. "SmartScrapers" business report documents that Tucson has 108 car washes. For example, there are 4 car wash businesses within a mile of each other near Grant and Wilmot with another being built. Why so many? The answer, it is easy money for the owners with profits ranging from $ hundreds of thousands to $ millions of dollars a year depending upon the type of car wash, full or self-service. Here is the issue, while car washes reclaim, clean and reuse water, they are still using fresh water daily. Do we really know how much water is wasted on car washes? Given 108 car washes at 20 cars a day and 10 gallons per car I estimate that car washes are using almost 8 million gallons of water per year. Now I know we waste water in a lot of different ways, but living in the desert, does Tucson really need 108 car washes?