about the Rancho Sahaurita Community:
Sahuarita Lake is an artificial lake that was completed on June 22, 2001, by Rancho Sahuarita. The lake surface area is 435,600 square feet (40,470 m2), with a 1-mile (1.6 km) long perimeter and maximum depth of 10 feet (3.0 m), holding approximately 70 acre feet (86,000 m3) of water. This reflects a water amount equivalent to less than one tenth of one percent (< 0.1%) of the 76,000 acre feet (94,000,000 m3) of water used by all of Sahuarita and Green Valley in 2006.
The lake is a "managed lake", which means that natural ecological changes within the lake that do "not fit within the parameters set by man", are cause for remedial action to return to the goals of the management plan. Air compressors located at various points under the lake continually inject air through diffusers which aids the movement of water in a process called vertical mixing. This system of continual aeration enables the circulation of all water in the lake on a daily basis, and therefore creates an ecological balance and uniform appearance. The lake also contains fish and frogs, the former of which are regularly stocked by the Arizona State Department of Game and Fish, and is an attraction to ducks and various kinds of birds.
The lake consumes water to the extent that all the water in the lake must be replenished every year. Regarding water evaporation, lake documents state that according to the USDA Water Conservation Laboratory in Phoenix, the mean annual evaporation rate for Sahuarita is 69 inches (1,800 mm) per year. This results in a mean water loss of 57.5 acre feet (70,900 m3) per year. Regarding water loss due to seepage, initial estimates indicated an annual loss of 10 acre feet (12,000 m3) of water, or 17% of total capacity per year. The J. Harlan Glenn Engineers that provided this estimate indicated that this equates to an "extremely low seepage rate". On average, 65 gpm (gallons of water per minute) must be pumped into the lake to maintain its current level. A nearby well site that draws on the shared Upper Santa Cruz Valley aquifer is used to refill the lake. In 2006, 105.3 acre feet (129,900 m3) of water was used for the entire Sahuarita lake park, which includes water for the 5 acres (20,000 m2) of grass and restroom facilities.
