"Ocean" To Be Built In Arizona Desert
As Part Of Water Sports Theme Park That May Use 60 Million To 100 Million Gallons A Year
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Photo
A surfer catches a big one in this artist's rendition of The Waveyard, a water park proposed to be built in Mesa, Arizona, by the year 2011. Other planned water sports include snorkeling, scuba and kayaking. (AP/Waveyard Development)
A project reminiscent of Ski Dubai - the world's largest snow park, in a country where daytime temperatures average 113 degrees - is taking shape in the Arizona desert. Water, not snow, is the theme for this one.
Developers plan to build a massive new water park that would offer surf-sized waves, snorkeling, scuba diving and kayaking - all in a bone-dry region that gets just 8 inches of rain a year.
"It's about delivering a sport that's not typically available in an urban environment," said Richard Mladick, a real estate developer who persuaded business leaders in suburban Mesa to support the proposal, called the Waveyard.
Artists' drawings of the park show surfers gliding through waves that crash onto a sandy beach, and kayakers navigating the whitecaps of a wide, roiling river. Families watch the action from beneath picnic umbrellas. If constructed, the park would use as much as 100 million gallons of groundwater a year.
That water use may raise future questions in a state that has been in a drought for a decade.
Many other water-hungry projects dot Arizona, courtesy of water tapped from rivers and pumped from deep underground. They include carpets of Bermuda grass, swimming pools, golf courses and lakeshore homes.
Waveyard's developer, Mladick, who is 39, says he wants to create the kind of lush environment he remembers from growing up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and surfing in Morocco, Indonesia, Hawaii and Brazil.
"I couldn't imagine raising my kids in an environment where they wouldn't have the opportunity to grow up being passionate about the same sports that I grew up being passionate about," he said.
The Waveyard, to be built 15 miles east of Phoenix, would dwarf the typical water-slide parks familiar to many Arizona families and at 125 acres, is considerably bigger than Ski Dubai, a close cousin in terms of rising above nature.
The Arizona water sports complex is to include an artificial whitewater river with multiple channels where kayakers can test themselves on Class 2 to Class 4 rapids. Visitors could enjoy an artificial beach and a simulated ocean capable of producing different size waves, from 12-foot barreling waves to tamer chop for boogie boarders.
The park will feature a scuba lagoon, a snorkeling pond with reefs and a rock-climbing center. The park will also have restaurants, a shopping district, a spa, and a hotel and conference center.
Jerry Hug, a businessman who co-founded the project, said he expects it will eventually generate more than $1 billion in revenue and create 7,500 jobs. That is especially attractive in Mesa, a city of about 460,000 people that has struggled to keep up with the booming development of its neighbors.
"We don't have a property tax in our city," said Eric Jackson, chairman of the Mesa Chamber of Commerce. "It requires us to be very heavily dependent on revenues from sales taxes."
Mesa voters overwhelmingly approved their proposal on Nov. 6, granting the Waveyard an estimated $35 million in tax incentives with more than 65 percent of the vote.
No citizens groups overtly opposed the project, but its water usage may raise questions in the future as the growing Phoenix areas struggles to replenish its vast aquifer. Arizona has been in a drought for a decade, and rivers that feed Phoenix and surrounding communities experienced near-record low measurements this year.
"Water is a scarce and valued commodity," said Jim Holway, associate director of the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University.
Holway said the Phoenix area currently enjoys huge supplies of underground water. But it is tough to determine how long communities can sustain their rate of water consumption, given that global warming may make the desert even drier.
The Waveyard will need as much as 50 million gallons of water at first to fill its artificial oceans and rivers.
Replenishing water lost to evaporation and spillage will require another 60 million gallons to 100 million gallons per year, enough to support about 1,200 people in the Phoenix area.
Project organizers say they will not tap Mesa's drinking water supplies to fill the park. Instead, they plan to draw from a well that has elevated levels of arsenic, which makes its water unsuitable for drinking. The Waveyard will build a treatment plant to make the water safe for swimmers.
Rita Maguire, a former director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources who studied water availability for Waveyard developers, said the project will not use any more water than one of Arizona's many golf courses.
"Initially, the reaction is, 'Oh, my - is this an appropriate use of water in a desert?"'
"But recreation is a very important part of a community. And if you can make the use of that water in a highly efficient way, it's a smart choice," she said.
Holway agreed, saying communities could do a better job using water in public spaces "that everybody can enjoy as opposed to having lush yards that we just lock behind fences."
"From that point of view, maybe this is a good thing."
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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See all 99 CommentsIt didn''t work then, either, and only hastened their doom.
Perhaps Bush has promised them Lake Michigan
and will brag about all the jobs the new pipline will create.
The developer is using a public well, pulling up almost 274 thousand gallons of water a day. This will certainly impact other wells in the surrounding area.
A water treatment plant will be built to make the water safe for swimming. Which means the water treatment plant is going to require large amounts of electricity and chemicals to remove the arsenic. The arsenic is a hazardous waster, so expensive handling and dispoal methods will be needed for that. Meanwhile, this water is now safe for human use which means this valuable resource could be used a multitude of applications other than a big swimming pool.
A huge water park will be built, that again uses a large amount of electrical power, in an area that doesn''t generate any and faces shortages regularly especially suring the summer.
If this project is approved and built it will speak volumes about the local government''s idiocy, especially during a time and in a desert area where both water and electricity are both valuable commodities.
Dubai engineering rocks.
We live in a desert. Some people live here because they need the dry heat, so we are going to make it a sauna and drive them out...
What a bunch of spoiled little twerps. The guy wants his kids to grow up enjoying the same sports he liked as a kid? Then MOVE to the ocean, idiot.
The homeless situation is the worst it has ever been. We have slums all over the U.S. from businesses which zoomed into a community then took off when the zeal wore off. We as a globe, have a huge problem with global warming.
When do the business freaks of this global community have to be responsible for their product to the point, that people and environments matter more than making another profit for just themselves?
Who gave the clearance for this project of pure wreckless. unconscious to the point of sick psycho-tic greed?
Who are these freaks of nature?
this project will benefit more people then a golf course and it uses the same amount of water ... my solution just trade. shut down one golf course and use that water for the water park. you know we all have to make sacrifices in this world!
Who are these freaks of nature?
Unfettered Capitalists, Generation X types, whos parents graduated from high school between 1946 to 1962, those that usually vote as Republicons that live for today, not for tomorrow, the same fools that have gottten the USA into its present state of unprecedented decline.
Now this I think that I will not be saving water anymore.........for oceans and fountains I think that Utah should flush their toilets and give them that water and no more for lake Powell if they have so much to build an ocean why do they need ours.
Also if some spoiled rich guy needs these things for his children move to the ocean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYjQpFAGUrQ
The climate is changing, water is becoming shorter in supply, and the populations are expanding. So what happens when the water runs out? Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Eventually, instead of fighting over natural resources like oil, we will be fighting wars over clean water.
Posted by marcodele at 10:19 AM : Nov 20, 2007
On the bright side, it should catch a lot of rain water once its empty...assuming it rains.
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