Brandon Loomis, and Mary Jo Pitzl

The Republic | azcentral.com

Bill allows cities to opt out of management rule

7,000 homes would use groundwater that feeds San Pedro River

Governor's office says sustainability has a high priority

Water conservation advocates recoiled at a bill passed Thursday by the Arizona House of Representatives that would sidestep groundwater management rules and green-light big residential developments in southern Arizona.

If Gov. Doug Ducey signs SB 1268, the bill would remove an impediment to building a 7,000-home Sierra Vista development called Tribute that wildlife and water activists say could kill the tiny San Pedro River and possibly endanger the future of the Army's Fort Huachuca.

The bill allows cities and towns in certain counties with groundwater pumping restrictions to opt out of the rules.

The bill also would tarnish Arizona's image as a smart water steward, earned by enactment of the 1980 Groundwater Management Act, the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association argued.

That law mandated pre-construction proof of 100-year supplies in urban counties such as Maricopa. It also allowed more rural counties to opt in with their own similar requirement — a step that Cochise and Yuma counties took.

"If one part of the state is seen as weakening its water management, the whole state is seen as weakening its water management," said Warren Tenney, executive director of the Arizona Water Users Municipal Association, which represents city water suppliers in the Phoenix area.

"It doesn't seem to be consistent with the message that the governor has been saying regarding water in recent months."

The governor and his administration have frequently touted Arizona's wise water management and aquifer recharge programs as having prevented a water crisis of the kind that forced statewide restrictions on Californians last year.

Bill goes back to Senate for concurrence

The House passed the bill 33-25 with heavy Republican support and sent it back to where it originated and first passed in the Senate for concurrence on amendments.

SB 1268 would allow Sierra Vista to ignore Cochise County's groundwater rule and approve the embattled Tribute development, among others.

The development has been tied up in state court for years. Opponents, including the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, have argued that the Arizona Department of Water Resources improperly declared the developers had access to a 100-year supply and ignored the likely depletion of the river and a congressionally-designated water right for a San Pedro conservation area.

House Speaker David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista, backed SB1268 and dismissed opponents wanting to stop economic growth. He said the area has sufficient water to "put people back to work" if the restrictions are lifted.

"We're starting to talk about intruding on our personal property rights," he said. "This is private property we're talking about. Those are fighting words."

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Numerous groups, public and private, have worked for years to cut groundwater pumping and protect the narrow ribbon of desert cottonwood trees on the San Pedro, an internationally recognized migratory bird attractant that dries up seasonally in spots.

Fort Huachuca has cut its own pumping by two-thirds and spent millions of dollars helping groups such as the Nature Conservancy recharge water into the aquifer whose springs sustain the river.

Still, pumping drains more than what nature puts back every year, and a University of Arizona hydrology report commissioned by the Center for Biological Diversity said the Tribute development would extend the river's seasonally dry stretches by 10 percent.

The development would use about the same amount that Fort Huachuca has given up.

Endangered birds threatened?

Robin Silver, a Cochise County landowner and co-founder of the Center for Biological Diversity, said undercutting groundwater management around the river threatens not only endangered birds such as the southwestern willow flycatcher, but also the viability of the Amy base.

Rather than drying up the Southwest's last free-flowing river, Silver said, Congress may opt to shift military missions to other Southern posts without such water scarcity.

"They literally have put a bulls-eye on Fort Huachuca for a significant reduction in force," he said.

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Audubon Arizona bird conservation director Tice Supplee said bill supporters wrongly framed the proposal as a fight against endangered species restrictions or federal environmental overreach instead of an attack on smart water policy.

"Undermining these positive, forward-looking actions by Yuma and Cochise counties really unravels smart water management in our state," she said.

It also threatens a bird-watching area that attracts visitors from around the world, she said.

Rep. Lisa Otondo, D-Yuma, unsuccessfully urged her colleagues to hold off until the courts decide on Tribute's water case. The existing law is meant to protect community water supplies, she said.

"We must continue to be pragmatic and proactive, just like those before us, in managing our water resources," she said.

Rep. Brenda Barton, R-Payson, said the bill narrowly targets Cochise County and gives communities appropriate flexibility.

"I guarantee you, I'm not doing anything that will harm us," she said.

Tribute is a project of Castle & Cooke, a company owned by California-based developer David Murdock, whose website also lists him as the majority stockholder Dole Food Co.

A message left at the number that the Castle & Cooke website listed for him was not immediately answered. An associate reached through the office's general number asked for questions by email, which also yielded no immediate response.

Company representatives have disputed that the development will deplete the river, in part because it will include a return of some treated wastewater to the ground.

The governor's office declined to say whether he supports the bill or to answer questions about threats to the river or Army base.

"Ensuring the certainty and sustainability of Arizona's water supply is a high priority for Gov. Ducey — and he will consider this legislation from that perspective when it reaches his desk," spokesman Daniel Ruiz said in an e-mail.