“I’m delighted and intrigued,” said Christina McVie, Tucson Audubon Society’s conservation chair. “While there are details still to be determined, I think it would be a win-win for the community.”

Before the City Council can formally consider the proposal, city staff must sell it to neighborhood leaders and business leaders.

Oft-squabbling city and county officials must also agree on a scheme to make the restoration compatible with the county’s plans to clear scores of existing native and non-native trees from the river channel in the name of flood control.

Finally, the city needs state approval of a plan to allow it to obtain just as many legal credits — which translates to earning just as much money — if it puts and keeps this water in the river as it would reap by taking it out and recharging it into the aquifer somewhere else. The credits allow the utility to pump the same amount of groundwater somewhere else, or it can sell them to someone else to pump groundwater.

Flows ended in 1940s

The death of the Santa Cruz is Tucson’s longest-running urban tragedy.