The White Mountains Water Projects Tour, August 28, 2026
On August 28, 2026, Audubon Southwest ran a tour of water projects in Arizona's White Mountains. Two of the stops were small drinking water districts, Heber and Pinedale Estates. Blake Anderson guided those two and wrote a two-page sheet for each, plus three more on the questions that come up every time a small water system gets into trouble: who pays for the fix, why the tank matters, and why the rules are the same at 90 connections as at 90,000. All five sheets are here as web pages, with the same numbers and the same sources, dated to the day.
The five sheets, and one guide
Each card carries the line that was printed across the top of that sheet.
Heber Domestic Water Improvement District
The backup plan got tested before it got built.
Pinedale Estates Domestic Water Improvement District
Eight times the limit. Since 1997.
How rural water gets paid for in Arizona
The money is there. They cannot reach it.
Why small water systems fail
Same rulebook. One percent of the customers.
Storage tank redundancy and inspection
Two is one. One is none.
Storage and tank water quality
Water age, not tank size, decides storage water quality.
The stops, in order
The agenda, as Audubon Southwest circulated it on August 27, 2026. The bus left Show Low at 9:30 a.m. carrying state legislators, WIFA and ADEQ staff, county officials, conservation organizations and press, and was back by 4:30 p.m. Times are the scheduled times.
What changed after August 26
The agenda was written before August 26. The Heber stop was added after the district's only storage tank came apart.
Two days before the bus arrived, the tank that held all of Heber's storage failed. The second tank the district had already funded stopped being a line on a design drawing and became the reason for the stop. Overnight an operator ran a temporary line to a neighboring tank, a one-night version of the interconnection the district had funded.
The Heber page carries the funded scope, the timeline and what was still open as of August 28, 2026. Cause has not been determined and an engineer's report is pending. Nothing on this page assigns one.
The organizers
Audubon Southwest put the day together. Trout Unlimited showed the Thompson-Burro Meadow project at Greer, which is theirs to tell; Audubon's own account of that work is the other place to read about it.
The sheets as handed out
The five sheets as they were handed out on August 28, 2026 (PDF, two pages each).
| Sheet | Pages | Download |
|---|---|---|
| Heber Domestic Water Improvement District | 2 | Heber field sheet (PDF) |
| Pinedale Estates Domestic Water Improvement District | 2 | Pinedale Estates field sheet (PDF) |
| How rural water gets paid for in Arizona | 2 | Rural water funding field sheet (PDF) |
| Why small water systems fail | 2 | Why small water systems fail field sheet (PDF) |
| Storage tank redundancy and inspection | 2 | Storage tank redundancy field sheet (PDF) |
As distributed on August 28, 2026. Where a page and its sheet differ, the page is current.
Who wrote this, and why it is on ziptility.com
Blake Anderson founded Mogollon Water Management, a water utility operator in Arizona. Under agreements with each district's elected board, Mogollon runs the day-to-day operation of the Heber DWID and Pinedale Estates DWID systems. Ziptility acquired Mogollon in April 2025; Mogollon runs as its own brand with its own team. Heber DWID uses Ziptility's software. Blake developed and teaches ADEQ's management training track for small-system boards and managers, holds Arizona's Grade 4 treatment and distribution certifications, and sits on WIFA's Federal Program Committee as a small-system representative. Nothing on this page speaks for WIFA or for either district; each district's own notices are on its own website. Every figure here is traceable to the sources below.
Sources
Every number on this page comes from one of these. Estimates are marked where they appear.
- Tour agenda, Audubon Southwest, circulated August 27, 2026.
- The five field sheets as distributed on August 28, 2026. Each sheet's own sources are listed on its page.
Corrections: blake@mogollonwater.com.