The Tucson Mayor and Council unanimously passed an ordinance that establishes regulations for large quantity water users at a meeting on Tuesday.
The vote is a follow-up to the council’s decision two weeks ago to cancel the planned data center known as “Project Blue”
Mayor Regina Romero said that the city needs to act immediately to protect its resources from any future data center or any other “water gobbling” industry.
“While we work for longer term changes that will protect all of us not just from water overuse but power and energy and so many other things,” she said.
According to city documents, large quantity users are defined as those using 10,000 centum cubic which is equivalent to about 7.5 million gallons of water per month on average.
The city [states] that currently, no single customer of Tucson Water uses that much water on a monthly basis but some golf courses that are connected to the reclaimed water system do on an annual basis.
Large quantity customers will be required to submit a conservation plan with their water service application, agree to use recycled water to offset at least 30% of water use and prove that water will not be wasted.
The city will engage in public outreach over the next six months to update the ordinance as needed as well as land use codes and zoning changes.
