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About The Department
Marshall Brown
Water Resources
General Manager
About the Scottsdale Water Resources Department
Scottsdale’s Water Resources Department maintains and operates both a water and wastewater system as a financially self-supporting municipal utility. The Department’s authority and responsibility are derived from resolutions and ordinances adopted by the City Council. The Department began operating the City’s water system in 1971.
The City’s water supply is derived from a combination of surface water, groundwater, and reclaimed water resources. The City receives surface water from the Salt and Verde River watersheds through the Salt River Project (SRP) and from the Colorado River via the Central Arizona Project (CAP) canal.
The potable water system currently serves approximately 87,248 active water accounts within a 185 square mile service area. Residential accounts make up close to 93% of all metered connections. In 2007, the Department delivered approximately 25.4 billion gallons of potable water to its customers. Roughly three-quarters of these deliveries were to residential customers. The City’s drinking water either meets or surpasses all Federal or State water quality regulations.
Salt River Project water is treated at the Chaparral Water Treatment Plant, which is located on the southeast corner of McDonald Drive and Hayden Road. This plant can treat up to 27 million gallons per day. Colorado River water is treated at the 50 million gallon per day CAP Water Treatment Plant, located at the City’s Water Campus facility at Pima Rd & Hualapai Drive in north Scottsdale. The City’s groundwater supply is provided by 23 active wells located throughout the City.
Scottsdale’s water transmission and distribution facilities consist of 2,030 miles of pipes and mains ranging in size from 6" to 42" in diameter. Public fire protection inside the water service area is provided with over 10,367 public fire hydrants. Total water storage capacity in the system is approximately 74 million gallons. This capacity includes 43 storage reservoirs.
Scottsdale’s sewer collection system includes approximately 1,400 miles of lines and 43 sewer lift stations. The City operates two treatment facilities one located at the Water Campus facility at Pima Rd & Hualapai Drive in North Scottsdale and the other located in Gainey Ranch just east of Scottsdale Rd on the south side of Mountain View Rd that reclaim up to 23 million gallons of wastewater each day for both golf course irrigation and groundwater recharge. The City delivered nearly 3.3 billion gallons of reclaimed water to 24 golf courses for irrigation during 2007. Prior to groundwater recharge, up to 12 million gallons per day of reclaimed water receives additional treatment at the City’s Advanced Water Treatment (AWT) facility located at the Water Campus facility utilizing micro-filtration and reverse osmosis technologies.
Colorado River water supplements the reclaimed water to provide additional groundwater recharge. During 2007, the Department recharged 2.3 billion gallons of water into the groundwater aquifer. The combination of increased surface water use, decreased groundwater pumping, and increased groundwater recharge resulted in the City achieving safe-yield within its service area both in 2006 and 2007. Safe-yield means that groundwater recharge met or exceeded groundwater pumping.
