Scottsdale's water recycling program hits election-year backlash

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) — A Phoenix suburb ditched a plan to send recycled water from toilets and other sources directly to residents' taps, after political candidates made unproven claims that the water is contaminated “poop water.”

The affluent city of Scottsdale mainly uses purified water from the city's liquid waste to recharge aquifers that can be drawn when other sources are running low. But in June, as criticism mounted, the city council replaced funding for the recycling program and other water projects with a vague $100 million allocation for new water sources and supplies.

The recycling program has become a strange wedge in a three-way race for two seats on the council in the November election. One candidate supports adding purified wastewater to the drinking supply. Meanwhile, a former Republican state lawmaker and a conservative incumbent say they're skeptical and questioned the safety and cost of meeting new state regulations.

The city says the candidates’ claims of “toilet to tap” or untested “poop water” marginalize the science behind the treatment program. Less than 1% of the city’s liquid waste comes from toilets, water officials said.

The budget change killed a plan to add purified wastewater that exceeds federal drinking water standards directly to Scottsdale’s supply by 2027.

Some experts and residents said the budget change — along with a council majority that frowns upon wastewater reuse — could weaken resilience at a time when the West is mired in drought and cities are facing significant cuts from the Colorado River.

Scottsdale pioneered the wastewater recycling system in 1998. The city’s recycling facility is big enough to serve 60,000 households.

That expertise is vital for water officials elsewhere in Arizona who are looking to replicate the work in at least four other facilities.

“It’s so important to protect and reuse water in the Southwest,” said Bryan Cassens, an assistant senior director for Scottsdale Water, which runs the recycling program. “Here we already know it all. We’ve been doing it for 28 years.”

The city of 250,000 gets 70% of its water from the Colorado River, more than any other city with the same population or larger in Arizona and California.

Scottsdale Water employees said that reliance and decades of population growth pushed them to recycle to defend against drought. All wastewater is treated through intensive steps — like ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet photolysis, officials said.

Some was sold to breweries to make beer. Around 7,500 people tried the water after facility tours and other events, but no residents received it through their taps at home.

With the program expansion stalled, officials with Scottsdale Water said they'll be prepared to present options to the council in October.

Former state lawmaker Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who is running for the city council, has been the most vocal opponent of the advanced water purification program.

She and actor Rob Schneider held up a glass of clear water and a glass of brown liquid in a May campaign ad that accused her opponents of pushing Scottsdale residents to drink sewage water, which her opponents denied.

A month later, the council approved the $100 million budget change.

Incumbent Councilman Barry Graham said the program is costly and an “alarmist” overreaction to drought.

Water officials in Scottsdale, Phoenix and Tucson also said some new state requirements on mixing purified water into the drinking water supply — like tracking chemicals and contaminants that are not federally regulated — unnecessarily raise costs.

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality is making the new rules easier to follow but won’t be finished until early 2027, said Randall Matas, who leads the department’s Water Quality Division.

Despite the debates, Cassens said the facility is operating as normal.

Ugenti-Rita did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Associated Press. Graham said advanced water purification would be a last resort in a water crisis, not now.

“I can’t just assume that every visitor and resident is going to trust the experts and is even going to listen to the experts,” Graham said.

The criticism in Scottsdale comes as two key barometers of the Colorado River's health — Lake Mead and Lake Powell — hit record lows this summer.

A federal proposal for the Colorado River outlines combined water cuts for Arizona, California and Nevada that could serve more than 25 million people annually through 2036.

“It’s not really a good time to start being selective,” said Cynthia Campbell, a former water resource management adviser for Phoenix. “Are you really going to play political games with the one thing that makes it possible to live in the desert?”

Since last year, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has committed to investing more than $300 million in advanced water purification projects in the arid West.

In Arizona, just over half of voters in the 2022 midterm election said they were “very” or “somewhat” confident that the state would have enough water over the next 10 years, according to AP VoteCast, which surveyed more than 3,000 Arizona voters. The other half, 47%, said they were “not too” or “not at all” confident.

Communities shouldn't abandon long-term investments in public health and sustainability for short-term gain, said Ben Grumbles, the executive director of Environmental Council of the States, a nonpartisan group of state and local environmental agency leaders.

“It can be frustrating when there are politicians scoring a cheap, fast point,” Grumbles said. “I hope that over time, the facts will bear out.”

Associated Press journalist Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux in Washington, D.C., contributed.

Bryan Cassens, Assistant Senior Director at the Scottsdale Water Campus, walks through the site, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, in Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Water flows through part of the standard wastewater treatment A+ effluent tertiary filter system at the Scottsdale Water Campus on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, in Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

The 18th green at the TPC Scottsdale, a golf course that gets their water from the Scottsdale Water Campus, is seen Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, in Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Campaign signs for Scottsdale City Council candidates are posted Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026 in Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Wufei Yu)

Michael Serpa, senior scientist at the Scottsdale Water Campus, works on water testing, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, in Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

LONDON (AP) — A far-right activist who has led protests against migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats has been arrested for allegedly slashing a dinghy in the water, police said Thursday.

The incident came as agitators against immigration adopt a confrontational new tactic of trying to stop the boats landing on England's shores, clashing with police and rescue workers in the process.

A video posted Tuesday on social media appears to show Daniel Thomas, 37, taking a knife to an inflatable boat, which was empty of migrants but had a rescue services member aboard, while shouting “You’re in English territory.”

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary said a 37-year-old man was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of criminal damage with intent to endanger life and endangering the safety of a vessel. It said he remained in custody on Thursday.

British police do not identify suspects by name until they are charged.

Thomas, who goes by the nickname Danny Tommo, is a longtime associate of far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson. Patriot Platform, a group Thomas founded, is behind recent protests in which masked, black-clad men tried to stop migrants reaching the U.K.

Earlier this month, masked demonstrators blocked the port of Dover, in southeast England, and tried to stop migrants being taken ashore in Portsmouth on the country’s south coast.

On Tuesday, hundreds of activists gathered at a marina in Gosport, near Portsmouth, as Thomas filmed himself going out to sea to try to intercept a dinghy carrying dozens of migrants across the Channel from France. Police said three people were charged with assaulting an emergency worker during the demonstration.

Some anti-immigration activists have targeted the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, a 200-year-old volunteer force that rescues people in distress at sea, because if is often called out to meet the migrant boats.

Some lifeboat crew members have been abused online and had their names and photos published, and the RNLI’s Portsmouth station closed temporarily after the protest in the city earlier this month.

Successive U.K. governments have struggled to stop people — more than 41,000 last year — making the dangerous journey across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. The issue has been depicted as a crisis by politicians including Nigel Farage of the hard-right party Reform UK, and has been used as a rallying point by anti-immigration activists.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s center-left government says stepped-up law enforcement cooperation between Britain and France has helped reduce the number of people making the crossing so far this year by more than 40% compared with 2025.

Burnham’s government has condemned the “intimidating and thuggish behavior” of recent anti-immigrant demonstrators.

The U.K. has seen a wave of sometimes violent anti-immigrant demonstrations in the past two years. Protesters clashed with police last year outside hotels housing asylum seekers in London and several other cities. In June, masked men in Northern Ireland set fire to several homes in Belfast they believed to house immigrants after a Sudanese man was arrested over a stabbing.

A group of migrants try to cross the channel from France to Britain on a dinghy boat, in Hardelot, northern France, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)

A group of migrants try to cross the channel from France to Britain on a dinghy boat, in Hardelot, northern France, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)

Police standby as people gather outside the Portsmouth Guildhall, Portsmouth, England, to take part in an anti-migrant South Coast Patriots march, Saturday Sept. 12, 2026. (Jonathan Brady/PA via AP)