Duck pond costs association $3K annually &
will lose ditch water to fill it in 2028
The Cottonwood Ditch Association won’t be able to provide the Del Rio Pond in the Verde Villages with its water beginning Feb. 1, 2028, when it loses the ability to legally source that water.
Ditch water was mandated to be phased out from decorative ponds use in 2023.
One possible solution is to turn it into a county park.
During the Verde Village Community Connection’s annual meeting on March 7, District 3 County Supervisor Nikki Check [D] said there are several agencies that need to give approval of any changes to existing bodies of water.
She said the County Flood Control Director Lynn Whitman had already begun talks to get things changed.
“She’s already taken the initiative to have conversations with those agencies, including the Army Corps of Engineers, Game and Fish and Fish and Wildlife Service, Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and there doesn’t appear to be any major hindrances,” Check said.
At the meeting, many VVCC members spoke in favor of keeping the pond without draining it. The cost of maintaining it and getting the water rights back from the state make that option nearly unfeasible, Check said.
After questions from audience members on pond versus the possible park’s affect on property values, Check said it’s difficult to answer.
“I feel like the question is comparing a park to a pit,” she said. “A dry pit.”
Operating the pond is also expensive for the Verde Village Property Owners Association, the legal name of the nonprofit organization that is the VVCC.
Jeff Raible, VVCC’s treasurer, said it cost $2,946 in 2025 to maintain the pond.
“$1,000 of that is just for the rights to the water that we get from the [Cottonwood Ditch] Association,” he said. “The other $2,000 is most of the electricity to pump that water into the pond.”
Pool
The VVCC decided to close the pool last year, citing financial concerns as well as safety.
VVCC President Aislinn Maldonado said the organization piggybacked off research the Town Camp Verde conducted before electing to close its own Camp Verde Heritage Pool.
“It wasn’t a gracious decision by any means,” she said of the VVCC Pool. “I also want to let you know that for the first time in the pool’s history, there was an incident where first aid had to be paramedics that had to be called out.”
She said a boy got dehydrated, and it wasn’t anyone’s fault.
“That’s a huge liability,” Maldonado said. “Our temperatures are just going up, and so we don’t have the resources in the room to navigate that stuff.”
Raible said the VVPOA made a $1,076 profit last year on the pool.
“You might be thinking, ‘well, if you’re making money off it, why don’t you just keep it open?’” Raible said. “We chose to invest basically nothing in this repair. It’s getting old. It costs a lot. We consciously chose not to put money into it and just try to earn money. If we wanted to keep it open, we would have to invest $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 to get it. We don’t have that money.”
Other financial struggles Raible mentioned were lower rentals of the community center, a worsening economy and the VVPOA wasn’t able to receive a loan for renovations.
